Vol. 16 No. 32 (2025): Communities and possible worlds. Community experiences and practices of resistance in neoliberal rationality
Articles

Intergenerationality and Social Change through Popular Education in a Neoliberal World: A Case Study of Popular Schools in Rome

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  • Peter Mayo,
  • Fiorenzo Parziale,
  • Elena Zizioli
Peter Mayo
Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education, University of Malta Malta
Bio
Fiorenzo Parziale
Dipartimento di Comunicazione e Ricerca Sociale, University of Rome La Sapienza Italy
Bio
Elena Zizioli
Dipartimento Scienze della Formazione, University of Rome 3, Italy
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-16191

Published 2025-12-30

Keywords

  • popular education,
  • intergenerationality,
  • Southern Europe,
  • Neoliberalism,
  • educational inequalities

How to Cite

Mayo, P., Parziale, F., & Zizioli, E. (2025). Intergenerationality and Social Change through Popular Education in a Neoliberal World: A Case Study of Popular Schools in Rome. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 16(32), 61–71. https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-16191

Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Mayo, Fiorenzo Parziale, Elena Zizioli

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This article focuses on popular education as a means of intergenerational education for social transformation against the neocolonial neoliberalism imposed by the “West”. The intergenerational nature of popular education has received little attention, yet it is truly relevant, especially today. Indeed, the current political and economic context is witnessing the spread of new political movements in the Global ‘North’, and even more so in regions like ‘Southern’ Europe, in which young and older educators develop intercultural relationships with children and adolescents from ethnic minorities, often from working-class backgrounds. The relationship between educators and students can challenge common sense steeped the Neoliberal Ideology, as evidenced by the illustrative example of the popular schools in Rome.

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