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The process of teaching and learning is not merely a question of transmitting a received cultural legacy but also of its transformation. Education is inseparable from life and from any socio-political model we wish to build and defend. This implies the impossibility of separating education from politics. Hence we must attempt to provide future generations with the skills and knowledge they need to enhance both their ability to question what they have inherited and also to enable them to actively take on their responsibility for the world as active as committed individuals. In this way, they will be empowered to reconfigure the world by constructing new, worthier and equitable ways of thinking. Focusing on the experience in Spain, this paper considers how critical education can function as a pedagogy of resistance against neo-liberal doctrines. In addition this article will put forward alternatives that would enable a rethinking of the Spanish public school system in the mold of critical education. Key to our proposal is the concept of education as a right that must be guaranteed for all. In our vision, education would be genuinely comprehensive and committed to equality and social justice; it would strive towards the ideal of a public school system that is democratic, inclusive, and non-religious. In this way, pupils would obtain an education designed to prepare them to be citizens of an intercultural world committed to feminism, and anti-neo-liberal and post-capitalist views.

Recently, the "Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency" (2012) have funded programmes designed to advance European citizenship and citizen competences through education. This paper reports on the findings from one project, Creative Connections, designed to encourage the "voices" of young people in exploring European identities. Children (aged 9-16) in 25 schools in six European Union (EU) countries (UK, Finland, Spain, Czech Republic, Portugal and Ireland) developed artworks that explored perceptions of European citizenship. Their art was posted on a secure website and they discussed images with peers using automatic online translated blogs. The project facilitated representations of identity/belonging using a range of media. However, some artworks suggested that children were alienated from "Europe", particularly EU responses to global austerity. This paper uses the theory of "precarity" to examine the ways in which the children expressed their concerns. Some artworks suggest that recent economic and political decisions have had the effect of challenging a sense of shared European citizenship; they resist a positive sense of identification with Europe and demonstrate fear for their future based on their current lives. This indicates that the EU's educational goals to promote citizenship competences may require revision to account for the challenges of contemporary societies.

In this paper, we analyse how neoliberalisation processes favour the development of what we call precarised citizenship. Faced with the logic of structural adjustment, austerity and cuts in social services, interesting critical socio-educational experiences have arisen, such as the Hortigas Agroecological Cooperative (based in Andalusia, Spain).This is presented as an 'alternative' practice based on food sovereignty and responsible consumption, promoting principles such as horizontality, mutual support, collaboration, autonomy and dialogical learning. On a methodological level, we apply an intrinsic case study using semi-structured depth interviews, documentary analysis and ethnographic observation. We analyse a self-managed practice that embraces assembly, community and solidarity values. This is in sharp contrast to the individualism, insecurity and uncertainty that characterise precarisation processes. Despite its local character and limitations Hortigas places great value on its transformative potential for alternative subjectivities.