Education and labor: ontological foundations and limits of the pedagogical proposal in School and Democracy by Demerval Saviani

Abstract

The article critically analyzes School and Democracy, by Dermeval Saviani, from the perspective of the materialist ontology of history formulated by Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), and further developed by György Lukács (1885–1971) in the ontology of social being. It proceeds from the assumption that education constitutes a social complex grounded in labor, the ontological category that structures human sociability. Through theoretical-bibliographical research and immanent analysis, the study examines Saviani’s theses concerning school marginalization, the theory of the “bending of the stick,” and historical-critical pedagogy in its formative stage, situating them within the process of capitalist social reproduction. The study problematizes the identification between education and labor, arguing that although education is a fundamental teleological mediation in social reproduction, it does not coincide with labor as the founding act of social being. In light of the contributions of the contemporary Marxist tradition, it maintains that Saviani’s proposal holds historical relevance insofar as it challenges both pedagogical idealism and structural reproductivism. However, its emancipatory realization encounters ontological limits within the social form of capital, whose overcoming requires the transformation of the relations of production. It concludes that historical-critical pedagogy constitutes a necessary mediation in the elevation of consciousness, but it is not a sufficient condition for human emancipation, which ultimately depends on the structural overcoming of capitalist sociability.