The Subject Educated in Colombia: Governing Secondary School Education And Forming Social Subjects (1956 - 2015)

Abstract

This article problematizes the formation of models of the educated subject in Colombia through an analysis of the curriculum and the governance of secondary education between 1956 and 2015. The methodology employed consists of research and analysis of historical sources concerning the social ordering of the transmission of certain forms of knowledge and the silencing of others, as well as norms and practices of curricular governance aimed at shaping a particular social subject. Among the research findings, three educational series are identified: (1) the curricular plan and the formation of the administrative subject (1956–1970); (2) the systematization of the curriculum through educational technology for the production of the standardized and informatized subject (1978–2000); and (3) curriculum management for the production of the subject of excellence, entrepreneurship, and innovation (2002–2015). The article demonstrates how the secondary education curriculum in Colombia functions as a sophisticated social technology of knowledge and governance: of knowledge, insofar as it privileges and organizes the social transmission of specific forms of knowledge; and of governance, insofar as it shapes, guides, excludes, or resists the constitution of particular social subjects.