THE EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM AS A MEANS, NOT AN END: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PEDAGOGICAL EMANCIPATION VIS-À-VIS THE BUREAUCRATIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the conception of the contemporary educational curriculum, problematizing its reduction to a bureaucratic and market-driven end at the expense of its essential function as a means for human emancipation and social transformation. Grounded in a critical and interdisciplinary theoretical perspective, the study articulates the contributions of Moacir Gadotti, Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, Michael Apple, and Gimeno Sacristán to expose the neoliberal colonization of school environments through the logics of efficiency, performance, consistency, and curricular standardization. It argues that the contemporary attachment to large-scale assessments and rigid curricula strips the pedagogical act of its ethical and creative dimension, turning knowledge into a commodity and the student into a passive consumer. Through a rigorous analysis of the curriculum as a domain of power struggles and subjectification, this work proposes overcoming the technicist paradigm. It concludes that the curriculum must be re-signified as an unfinished, dialogic praxis—constituting a living process of world-reading capable of fostering autonomy, plurality, and social justice.