The article outlines the conceptual assumptions of pedagogy underlying university education, re-defined with regard to the dynamic conditions underlying contemporary culture. The authors concentrate on constitutive educational forms that define the nature of semiosis in education, as well as their exposure and transformation. In connection with this, there is a focus on the concept of “symbolic politics”, which aims to liberalize the practice of pedagogy, freeing it from the dictatorship of a transmission form of education, as well as creating conditions for strengthening discursive relationships and a reflexive discursive attitude. As a result of the implementation of this form of symbolic politics, those involved in education do not promote the prevailing discourse but become agents capable of discursive reflection in action as well as participants in processes of discursive design and creation.

Punktem wyjściowym artykułu jest teza, że zależność między jakością pracy i kształcenia nauczycieli a jakością nauczania w szkole, ma charakter sprzężenia zwrotnego. Nie tylko edukacja nauczycieli wpływa na to, co dzieje się w szkole, ale także model szkoły i programu nauczania decyduje o tym, jak i dla jakiej szkoły są kształceni nauczyciele. Dla uzasadnienia tej tezy wykorzystano analizę zasobów leksykalnych, za pomocą których w polskiej podstawie programowej dla szkół ogólnokształcących są opisane oczekiwane efekty nauczania, analizę dokumentów potwierdzających nauczycielskie kwalifi kacje kandydatów na studia podyplomowe w zakresie drugiego przedmiotu oraz nieudokumentowane dane dotyczące doboru kadry prowadzącej przedmioty pedagogiczno-psychologiczne na wydziałach kształcących nauczycieli przedmiotów. Całość analiz dowodzi rozległych obszarów niedociągnięć w zakresie edukacji nauczycieli, umacnianych modelem tradycyjnego przekazu wiedzy wytwarzanym przez obowiązujące w kraju regulacje pochodzące z resortu oświaty.

In the text, a polemic is undertaken against the model of the child expected in Polish institutions of early childhood education, and which appropriates the rationalities producing social practices. The source of this model is in the logic of standardization whose cognitive and effects on identity are criticized by the author. Identifying the sources of validation of the practices normalizing some children and stigmatizing others, who do not meet the requirements of the cognitively rigid and morally trivialized standards, the text points to developmental psychology as a discipline which potentially triggers this form of oppression. In conclusion, the author describes briefly a number of examples of educational solutions in which an attempt has been made to move beyond the discourse of standardized quality in child education.

The article discusses the problem of counteracting academic promotion won on the basis of apparent achievements. Attention was drawn to the growing problem of so-called “Slovak habilitation and degrees”, to the pedagogical promotion of persons from outside of pedagogy that is not justified by achievements of good quality, but is based on popular science publications, to the phenomenon of softening and ignoring negative reviews and the reviewers’ tendency to mitigate the final conclusions of their opinions. Some ways to prevent promotional pathology are also recommended as worth using in academic practices.