S ouza, J oão F rancisco de (1944–2008)

Abstract

João Francisco de Souza was a popular educator, sociologist, academic, and activist. He was born in Timabaúba, Pernambuco, in the Brazilian Northeast. He dedicated his life to teaching and learning about popular education as a means of humanization around the world. Souza defended the idea that education must be a social praxis, with responsibility for raising historical, political, and cultural issues in context and seeking social transformation. For him, education was a cultural activity for cultural development in the postmodern era, characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. His actions ranged through popular social movements, pluriculturalism, multiculturalism, democracy, teacher training, and education of youth and adults who did not complete formal education. At the time of his death, he was an important reference figure in the field of young adult school leavers' education both in Brazil and throughout Latin America. All of his theoretical and practical reflections on popular education were and continue to be seen as a general critical theory of education.