Neither demarcation nor confrontation

Abstract

AbstractRight-wing populism has strongly polarizing effects in politics, education and science—a problem which this article aims to adress. Instead of claiming a demarcation between science and education on the one hand and right-wing populist ideology on the other, we initially focus on continuities. At the same time, we are concerned with finding a critical distance towards right-wing populism. Using the theoretical framework of boundary-work we therefore analyse a case of right-wing populist educational and scientific efforts. Boundary-work can occur in an institutional, content-related and epistemic dimension. While we identify strong continuities in the institutional and content-related dimensions, we see the main difference in the epistemic dimension. In conclusion, we use the results of our analysis to develop a critical position as scientists and educationists towards right-wing populism, drawing consequences for the epistemic, content-related and institutional dimensions.