Empowered and Resilient: Educating Young People in Neoliberal Ideology

This article recovers the concept of "Ideology", anathematised by postmodern hegemony; here, taken out of the theoretical opprobrium in which it is found, I use it to carry out a critique of a youth-oriented community development program in the city of Barcelona. This approach should not be an exception given that young people are so mercilessly bombarded with social programs elaborated around clearly ideological concepts such as "resilience" or "empowerment". Contrary to a certain commonplace narrative that defends the withdrawal of the State while facing the forces of the market, that process of neoliberal ideologisation is carried out not only with the acquiescence of states, but also with their active participation. The analysis of a public program such as this one shows, empirically, how governments are complicit with market forces through programs that transmit and put into practice neoliberal ideology. reviewed acceptedVersion