Education for adaptation or emancipation?
Autonomy as the primary purpose of Education in the light of Socrates, Diderot, Montessori, Piaget, and Freire
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24220/2318-0870v31a2026e18356Keywords:
Educational formation, Freedom, Critical thinking, Educational process, VirtueAbstract
This essay presents a critical and conceptual reflection on the meaning of education and educational quality in the contemporary context, based on the contrast between the historical tradition of educational thought and the normative frameworks promoted by the United Nations and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Although global educational discourse emphasizes inclusion, access, and the development of skills and competencies, it is argued that such rhetoric entails a conceptual narrowing that sidelines the autonomy of the subject as an explicit educational aim. Through a historical-conceptual analysis, the essay revisits the contributions of Socrates, Diderot, Montessori, Piaget, and Freire, demonstrating how education has been consistently understood as a process oriented toward the formation of judgment, critical thinking, and selfgovernance. The central argument advanced is that autonomy should be understood not as a secondary or contingent outcome, but as the primary result of education. From this perspective, education must be centered on the subject and committed to providing content, experiences, and learning environments that foster critical reflection, the capacity to judge both the world and oneself, and the construction of scientific knowledge. The essay concludes that the exclusion of autonomy from contemporary definitions of educational quality significantly reduces the emancipatory potential of education, aligning it with a logic of functional adaptation rather than with its historical role in human formation.
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