Ten Years on: Engaging the Work of Paulo Freire in the 21st Century

Abstract

Paulo Freire died on 2 May 1997. He left a legacy of practical and theoretical work equalled by few other educationists in its scope and influence. Born in 1921, Paulo Freire grew up in Recife, Brazil. After completing secondary school Freire attended the University of Recife, where he studied law. He also developed a strong interest in educational and philosophical matters. Freire’s work with the Social Service of Industry (SESI) at the Regional Department of Pernambuco in the 1940s and 1950s brought him into direct contact with impoverished workers and was to have a significant impact on his subsequent thinking about social class. In the early 1960s Freire developed the distinctive approach to adult literacy education for which he was later to gain international acclaim. Plans for a nationwide literacy campaign were brought to an abrupt halt with the military coup in 1964. Freire was seen as a subversive and he was forced to seek exile. He spent approximately five years in Chile, working with adults in an extension education programme. This was followed by a decade with the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. Freire was finally able to return permanently to Brazil in 1980. He became active in the Brazilian Workers’ Party, and from 1989 to 1991 served as Secretary of Education in the municipality of Sao Paulo. His final years were devoted primarily to writing, lecturing and reflection. Freire’s best known book is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1972a). This classic text, together with two other early works, Education for Critical Consciousness (Freire 1973) and Cultural Action for Freedom (Freire 1972b), was published at a time of intense educational debate, with a number of writers across the globe questioning cherished assumptions about teaching, learning and schooling. Pedagogy of the Oppressed was often read alongside Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society (1973). While Illich and Freire both provided a radical critique of traditional education, the ‘answers’ they offered were rather different. Pedagogy of the Oppressed went on to become one of the biggest selling books of all time by an educationist. After the flurry of international interest in the years