Neoliberal Childhood: The Education of Children in a Capitalist Society

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the concept of childhood within capitalist society, in order to understand how the model of formal education - through the curriculum - is structured for this childhood. To achieve this objective, the article is organized as a bibliographic research and adopts Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) historical-dialectical materialism as its methodological foundation, focusing on the categories of contradiction, hegemony, and reproduction. To broaden the understanding of the topic, the Marxist method is brought into dialogue with Michel Foucault’s (1926-1984) contributions on the concepts of biopower and biopolitics. Childhood and children are identified as socially and historically constructed subjects, whose class background directly impacts their education, schooling, and curriculum. In regard to this education, the curriculum is understood as a contested space of power, while the school - shaped by biopolitical regulations - emerges as an instrument for reproducing a particular societal model.