The Dangerous and the Good? Developmentalism, Progress, and Public Schooling

In light of numerous critiques of developmentalism, this article examines whether developmentalism has been a dangerous way to think about human life. it traces the emergence of different kinds of developmental discourse, locates the discursvie preconditions for developmentalismʹs dominance in education, and examines the conjuncture between developmentalism and progressivism in shaping the limits of educationʹs discursive field since the late 19th century. The article examines some of the productive and repressive legacies of developmental reasoning and concludes by examining present efforts to destabilize and fracture developmental discourse. It suggests that the historical articulation of developmentalism to an idea of progress has not been undermined through presentday critiques that still implicitly project "progress" as the grounds for efforts to destahilize "development. " Alternatives to developmental discourse are considered in relation to how judgments of the dangerous and the good have been shaped through problematic narratives of progress and human freedom.