Paulo Freire and education for liberation

Abstract

This chapter examines the influence of Paulo Freire’s philosophy and pedagogy of critical education within Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers Movement, popularly known as the MST—the largest and best organized rural movement in contemporary Latin America. Specifically, it explores the development and outcome of the MST’s politically oriented educational project within the broader context of the struggle for agrarian reform and social justice in Brazil. Freire (1921–1997) was a Brazilian educator who advanced a critical educational philosophy and pedagogy as an instrument of human liberation. He openly questioned educational systems that not only justified dominant social relations but also condemned the poor and oppressed to live under the “culture of silence”—the condition in which they are powerless to reflect and act on their social world (Freire, 2000). Freire emphasized the importance of the poor and oppressed engaging in a critical educational process of conscientizacao (“consciousness-raising”) in order to change their social conditions. He argued that consciousness-raising is a dialectic process that develops and evolves through reflection and action. He used the metaphor o caminho se faz ao andar (we make the road by walking) to illustrate the process of consciousness-raising (Horton & Freire, 1990). He also stressed that this process is fundamental to transforming prescribed social roles and structures that repress and oppress humanity. Without consciousness-raising, there is no human liberation (Freire, 2000). During the mid-1960s, Freire’s critical educational philosophy and pedagogy was considered a radical communist ideology and was severely repressed by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985). Freire himself was persecuted and forced to go into exile for almost 16 years (Araujo & Macedo, 1998; Marques de Melo, 2015).