The Dehumanization of the Educational Process and Its Contributing Factors

This article examines the dehumanization of education as a structural and relational problem in which educational aims may be reduced to measurable outcomes, standardized indicators, and instrumental efficiency, while the personal experience, autonomy, and relationships of learners and teachers are pushed to the margins. The theoretical analysis draws on Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, Martha Nussbaum’s arguments concerning the humanities and democratic citizenship, Zygmunt Bauman’s and Leonidas Donskis’s discussion of moral blindness and adiaphorization, Neil Postman’s critique of technological culture, and contemporary research on the humanization of education. Three interconnected factors are considered: hierarchical and monologic teaching; the economic reduction of educational purposes and bureaucratization of assessment; and the asymmetric integration of digital technologies in ways that may weaken human judgment and interaction. The article discusses possible implications for teachers’ professional autonomy, learner agency, empathy, and democratic culture. It then outlines principles for re-humanization: dialogic teaching, recognition of learners’ lived experience, stronger humanities and ethical reflection, protection of teachers’ professional judgment, and human-centred use of technology. The article is conceptual and theoretical in nature; it does not report empirical research findings