“There Is No Sin Below the Equator”: Neoliberalism and Education in High School

Abstract

This theoretical essay addresses the influence of the global neoliberal agenda on the shaping of educational policies regulating high school education. The aim is to discuss general and professional high school education in relation to the discourse of qualification for the “world of work,” as outlined in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and the National Education Guidelines and Framework Law of 1996. The study is based on a post-structuralist theoretical-epistemological perspective, drawing on the theories of Ball (2020), Foucault (2006; 2008), Laclau (2005), and Mouffe (2003), along with other analyses. It is considered that the reforms promoted by Brazilian educational policies regulating the provision and curricular organization of high school education, whether integrated with professional education or not, have been guided by the demands of the global neoliberal agenda. That is, the education of young people and adults at this stage of schooling is centered on the acquisition of skills, neotechnicism, and entrepreneurship, elements compatible with the requirements of the capitalist system. This puts into operation the colonial-capitalist regime of labor and vital force expropriation, intertwined with neoliberal biopolitical governmentality, which governs bodies and conduct. Thus, in the current social and political order, the production of the subjectivity dubbed by Foucault (2008) as homo economicus is underway, one who governs his conduct based on well-calculated goals and objectives. A subject who dedicates himself entirely to training for employability, clinging to the illusion of success in life and professional career at any cost.