In this article, we centre our attention on the 'development of individual capacities' in an attempt to map out the effects of the simultaneous pressure, top-down and bottom-up, that has been increasingly brought to bear on the nation-state and on the education system. With regard to the first, it is argued (cf. Bernstein, 1996) that what is at stake is the transformation of knowledge itself into money (i.e., pure performance); while with regard to the second, there appears to be taking place a movement of knowledge from the school (national level) to the local community in which this latter is interpreted as the 'educative city' (where a 'transparent' communicational pedagogy holds sway). This work aims at challenging the dichotomy constructed by way of an analysis of the implications, for both pedagogy and the development of individual capacities, of the development and consolidation of a network state and society (Castells, 1996).
Education; Knowledge; Network; Competencies; Policies