Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of Paulo Freire's works. First published is 1970, the book examines the struggle for justice and equity within the educational system and proposes a new pedagogy. Paulo Freire Paulo Freire (Recife, Brazil September 19, 1921 - São Paulo, Brazil May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of education. ... J.L. Urban, statue of Lady Justice at court building in Olomouc, Czech Republic (1896-1901) Justice is the ideal, morally correct state of things and persons. ... Pedagogy is the art or science of teaching. ...

Dedicated "to the oppressed, and to those who suffer with them and fight at their side," Freire includes a detailed Marxist class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Rooted in his own experience helping Brazilian adults to read and write, the book remains most popular among educators in developing countries. According to Donaldo Macedo, a former colleague of Freire and University of Massachusetts professor, the text is still revolutionary, and he cites students living in totalitarian states who have risked punishment to read Pedagogy of the Oppressed as evidence. The book has sold over 750 000 copies worldwide and is one of the foundations of critical pedagogy. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... This page is about the university system across Massachusetts. ... The concept of Totalitarianism is a typology or ideal-type used by some political scientists to encapsulate the characteristics of a number of twentieth century regimes that mobilized entire populations in support of the state or an ideology. ... Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate. ...

Summary

Translated into several languages, most editions of Pedagogy of the Oppressed contain at least one introduction/foreword, a preface, and four chapters.

The first chapter explores how oppression has been justified and how it is overcome through a mutual process between the "oppressor" and the "oppressed". Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, he admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He writes, "Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion." According to Freire, freedom will be the result of praxis--informed action--when a balance between theory and practice is achieved. Oppression is the negative outcome experienced by people targeted by the arbitrary and cruel exercise of power in a society or social group. ...

The second chapter examines the "banking" approach to education (a metaphor used by Freire that suggests students are considered empty bank accounts that should remain open to deposits made by the teacher). Freire rejects this approach, claiming it results in the dehumanization of both the students and the teachers. In addition, he argues the banking approach stimulates oppressive attitudes and practices in society. Instead, Freire advocates for a more world-mediated, mutual approach to education that considers people incomplete. According to Freire, this "authentic" approach to education must allow people to be aware of their incompleteness and strive to be more fully human. This attempt to use education as a means of consciously shaping the person and the society is called conscientization, a term first coined by Freire in the book. Dehumanization is a process by which members of a group of people assert the inferiority of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. ... The term Conscientization comes from the Portuguese term Conscientizacão. ...

The third chapter is devoted to dialogics--"the essence of education as the practice of freedom"--and dialogue. Freire argues that words involve a radical interaction between reflection and action and that true words are transformational. Dialogue requires mutual respect and cooperation to not only develop understanding, but also to change the world. "Authentic" education, according to Freire, will involve dialogue between the teacher and the student, mediated by the broader world context. He warns that the limits imposed upon both the colonizer and the colonized dehumanize everyone involved, thereby removing the ability for dialogue to occur, inevitably barring the possibility of transformation. In English, Dialogic is a term used by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his work of literary theory, The Dialogic Imagination. ...

The last chapter proposes dialogics as an instrument to free the colonized, through the use of cooperation, unity, organization and cultural synthesis (overcoming problems in society to liberate human beings). This is in contrast to antidialogics which use conquest, the concept of divide and rule, manipulation and cultural invasion. Freire suggests that populist dialog is a necessity to revolution; that impeding dialogue dehumanizes and supports the status quo. This is but one example of the dichotomies Freire identifies in the book. Others include the student-teacher dichotomy and the colonizer-colonized dichotomy. A dichotomy is a division into two non-overlapping or mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive parts. ...

More detailed chapter by chapter summaries are available through The Communication Initiative.

Reaction

Since its publication, the book has sparked both praise and criticism. For example, Stanley Aronowitz, from City University of New York, proclaims, the book "meets the single criterion of a classic: it has outlived its own time and its author's. For any teacher who links education to social change, this is required reading." Gail Kidd, from Purdue University writes, Freire "possesses wonderful insight into people's souls. He finds every human worthy of respect, dignity, and trust. It is uplifting to read and understand his empathy for others and their plight." Critics have attacked Freire's book on a number of fronts. Sarah Hendriks, from the University of Toronto, points out that Freire's writing "seems to contradict the very essence of his pedagogy . . . . [since he argues that language changes the world but] does not leave room for the inclusion of popular discourse within the text of his own pedagogy, thereby limiting his text to a specific, academically-oriented audience." Another critic, Diana Coben, from King's College, asserts that Pedagogy of the Oppressed is "...just too simple and indiscriminate to accommodate the multi-faceted and contradictory nature of differential power relationships in terms of gender, class or any other social category." Rich Gibson attacks Freire as a Hegelian "objective idealist," who borrowed heavily from Hegel's "Phenomenology," as "a petrified old-style socialist wherever he wasn't, and a reformer wherever he was; a devout Catholic who never broke out of his mysticism." Others have noted Freire's ultimately idyllic vision of a world without oppression while Feminist reviewers have been critical of Freire's use of gender biased language. To read more criticism of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, see Reviews of Paulo Friere's Books . The City University of New York (CUNY; acronym pronounced kyoo-nee), is the public university system of New York City. ... Purdue University is a public land-grant university whose primary campus is located in West Lafayette, Indiana on the bluffs above the Wabash River. ... The University of Toronto (U of T) is a coeducational public research university in Toronto, Ontario. ... There are a number of institutions known as Kings College: Kings College London, a college of the University of London Kings College, Aberdeen, a college in Aberdeen, Scotland Kings College, Cambridge, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge Kings College a private boarding secondary... Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ...

References

Rich Gibson, The Frozen Dialectics of Paulo Freire, in NeoLiberalism and Education Reform, Hampton Press, 2006

External links

• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire