Differentiating citizenship, criminalizing diversity: Problematizingconvivenciain education in Spain

Abstract

This article traces the conditions that made possible the legislation of police surveillance of schools as a “solution” to the “problems” of convivencia in school, during a period of social and racial diversification of Spanish society. During the 1980s and 1990s, convivencia – the ideal of living together in harmony – served as a discourse for producing a new imaginary of conviviality in a new liberal-democratic political culture after a long dictatorship. However, since 2000, the “problem” of convivencia reassembled in Spain’s public sphere as a “problem” of diversity, violence and public safety. But what is it about convivencia in diverse schools and society that has made it seem reasonable to have police surveil schools and students as a solution to the “problems” of convivencia? Through the critical encounter of historical and ethnographic analysis of educational policy and printed media, I interrogate the notion of convivencia by tracing the ways in which “problems” of convivencia have been deployed in Spain’s cultural politics to produce and differentiate citizens both within and outside the educational field. I argue that convivencia has functioned as a moving target in forming the ideal citizen and has embedded a division that differentiates human bodies by gendering and racializing their attributes through a civilizing agenda.

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