NEOLIBERALISM, POSITIVE EDUCATION AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: AN ANALYSIS FROM THE THOUGHT OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

Abstract

The present study aims to establish a connection between Positive Education, the concept of Emotional Intelligence and Foucauldian reading about Neoliberalism. By understanding neoliberalism as the rationalization of government practice, which takes the form of disciplines and biopolitics, we seek to show how close they are to what we today call Emotion Management. Under the broad concept of Emotional Intelligence, we will present a vast literature that, through different methodological and analytical routes, proposes to introduce, into the social body, a set of interventions that combine individual happiness, the optimization of productive forces and the collective well-being. Finally, we indicate how the field of Education, by seeking support in themes, concepts and practices specific to Positive Psychology, constitutes itself as a privileged space for the Management of Emotions which, sewing an alliance between new humanisms and neoliberalism, founds the very current field of Positive Education.