O sentido político das relações entre educação e autonomia e suas diferentes implicações

The education, as a social process and a political practice, can take different perspectives and meanings, acting for or against certain models and values. From this premise, this paper makes a critical analysis about appropriation of the autonomy concept by the current educational discourse, in an attempt to clarify the political meaning of this appropriation ant its consequent implications for various dimensions of the educational process. This analysis shows that, although the autonomy may be being subjected to an instrumentalization that reduces its true meaning and puts it in the service of neoliberal conception, its legitimacy still can and should be ensured in the context of education. This legitimacy requires the autonomy be understood in connection to the social, cultural, political, economic and ideological factors that condition the individuals and institutions experience, towards the construction of social relations fairer and more egalitarian.