Cultural Action For Freedom Research Articles

Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation

Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation

A questão ética e religiosa na ordem do discurso freireano

n this paper, of a bibliographic nature, the way Paulo Freire used “ethics” as the founding principle of his reflections, problematizations and arguments on the insertion of religious social work in the heart of Latin American social relations is analyzed. The following works were examined under the lens of the Archaeological Discourse Analysis, based on Foucault (2000): Cultural action for freedom, 1981 Brazilian edition; Education: the practice of freedom, 1967 Brazilian edition; Pedagogy of the oppressed, 1987 Brazilian edition; Extension or communication?, 1983 Brazilian edition; and Os cristãos e a libertação dos oprimidos, 1978 edition. It is highlighted that Paulo Freire’s understanding of ethical and religious issues does not only hold a specific way of being, as ethics works as a parameter for critical analysis of different social and historical manifestations on the religious issue and its relationship with the people. It is concluded that the meaning of the notion and the use of the signifier “ethics” as a principle of criticality is recurrent in the argument, in the positioning and in the Freirean discursive order.

Creating Culture Circles- A Case of Continuing Professional Development Workshop for Israeli Special Education Teachers

The focus of critical educational philosophy is not only on criticising traditional education (Banking education), but also on promoting a pedagogy for liberation, whereby education is a cultural action for freedom. The main strategy or tool of critical pedagogy is the culture circle, a dialogical problem-posing method of education. The current qualitative case study examined the use of culture circles in a continuing professional development workshop for Israeli special education teachers. Given the over-representation of culturally and economically oppressed populations in the special education system, it would be appropriate to raise the awareness of the SE teachers of this situation. Findings revealed that while developing culture circles during the workshop, most of the teachers moved from proposing hurried and shallow solutions, to offering carefully thought-out ideas for joint analysis, following an in-depth review and definition of the problem. Despite starting the process with an idealised perception of society and an over-inflated sense of self-efficacy, when group participants completed the workshop, they had acquired the ability to acknowledge and even contend with the unjust conditions and imperfections of the Special Education System. It seems that, participating in culture circles can help teachers to both understand their current realty fully and deeply and to set meaningful goals for the future.

Pedagogia do Oprimido: Um ícone aos 50 anos

This article focuses on the 50th anniversary of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, completed in 1968. We consider the book as the articulating nucleus of a complex, polyphonic work under permanent construction / reconstruction. This work is part of a trilogy that begins with his academic thesis of 1959 (Education and Brazilian Actuality), continues in Education as a Practiceof Freedom (1965), until draining into the book on screen. And that continues in other later works, such as Cultural Action for Freedom and Other Writings (1970). It is also considered that his author intended to rewrite it and did so, in part, in the books Pedagogy of Hope: A Reunion With the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1992) and Politics and Education (1993). In this rewriting, almost 25 years later,Freire remade concepts, bet on another paradigm, discarded characters and emphases from the 1968 book, demonstrating the permanent movement of epistemological reconstruction marked by the historical circumstances of his political-pedagogical practices in Brazil and in many countries of the world. As a builder of his diverse historical times and political spaces, he erected “the various Paulo Freire”, having the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed as the connecting nucleus of the other parts of his written work.

EDUCAÇÃO, CONDIÇÃO HUMANA E LIBERDADE: UMA ABORDAGEM FREIREANA

Este artigo problematiza o tema Educação, condição humana e liberdade no pensamento freireano. A exposição privilegia a alegoria da viagem e da imagem de leitura de excertos da obra de Paulo Freire. Levanta-se a hipótese da existência de uma ontologia – visão de ser humano – na obra do autor, necessária para o projeto de mundo, presente na concepção de Educação como prática da liberdade. Ao apresentar a contribuição da dinâmica de investigação dos temas geradores, sustenta que o modo de fazer educação, representado pela Pedagogia do oprimido, configura-se como Ação cultural para a liberdade. Tal ação cultural diz respeito à prática educativa dialógica, problematizadora, amorosa e corajosa o suficiente para levar os seres humanos – educadores (as) e educandas (os) – a refletirem sobre o seu mundo. A educação representa a possibilidade de humanização dos seres humanos, na conceituação de ontologia como ser mais. Argumenta-se, por um lado, que a teorização do humano em Freire apresenta-se como contribuição para organização das práticas educativas em diferentes cenários, da escola aos movimentos sociais. Por outro, respeita à produção do conhecimento educacional em uma perspectiva crítica, no âmbito da ação e da formação de professoras e professores. O empreendimento freireano pretende endereçar os seres humanos ao mundo para, juntos, dialogarem sobre suas situações-limite e sobre a boniteza de o lerem para dizer a sua palavra. O leitmotiv – o fio condutor e a razão de ser – da teorização freirena não é somente a educação, mas o amor radical aos seres humanos, ao mundo e à própria vida.

Paulo Freire: da denúncia da educação bancária ao anúncio de uma pedagogia libertadora

Resumo Este artigo procura identificar o sentido da denúncia da educação bancária, realizada por Paulo Freire, e apontar suas implicações para o anúncio de uma educação libertadora sobre o corpo dos educadores. A partir das obras do educador, busca-se discutir, num primeiro momento, a denúncia da educação bancária, e, num segundo momento, o anúncio de uma pedagogia libertadora freireana: problematizadora e conscientizadora. Para a análise interpretativa dos dados, lançou-se mão da hermenêutica como metodologia de pesquisa em Educação. Como resultado, verificou-se que, quando Freire faz o anúncio de uma pedagogia libertadora, ele não está apenas propondo outra realidade possível, mas, também, está fazendo a denúncia de uma educação opressora, vista como uma negação do corpo na prática pedagógica. Por fim, uma educação libertadora só se efetivará quando o educador/educando oprimido se conscientizar, reconhecendo o opressor hospedado no seu corpo. Será o educador/educando livre, portanto, a partir da práxis e da humanização de si e dos outros.

From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?

Etymologically, a disaster is a kind of misfortune, and so it is one of the great ironies and sorrows of the present age that disasters have become prime fodder for the sort of laissez-faire economic development that aims mainly at the creation of private fortunes for well-connected corporations and individuals (Klein, 2007). Of course if such fortunes were only epiphenomena of more peaceful, just, and balanced societies – in short, ecological societies – then perhaps critical tempers could be mollified to some degree. However, as numerous studies have revealed, ongoing economic reconstruction programs that seek to integrate regional economies into the global neoliberal framework appear not only to have generally failed to improve most people’s lives, but have disastrously grown the gaps between the rich and poor (Scott, 2001; Reuter, 2007; Pew Research Center for People and the Press, 2003). Hence, alter-globalization movements have arisen that seek to challenge the hegemony of this agenda (Kahn and Kellner, 2007), and indeed, philosophies that have stressed cultural empowerment for “less developed” nations, instead of their capital improvement, can now be traced back nearly fifty years. In educational circles, for instance, theories opposing the instrumental extension of global capital into the Third World date to at least the early texts of radical theorists such as Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich, who promoted “cultural action for freedom” (Freire, 2000) and a founding form of post-development theory (Rahnema and Bawtree, 1997), respectively. There is also the political and economic global Third Way of so-called liberal centrists like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, whom the New York Times has referred to as the “Impresario of Philanthropy” (Dugger, 2006) because of his Clinton Global Initiative and his work on behalf of disaster relief related to the recent Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. The rhetoric of this approach champions sustainable development as a win-win-win for people, business, and the environment, in which the following policy goals are upheld: 1) development “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987) and 2) development improves “the quality of human life while living within

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

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

Cultural Action for Freedom: Paulo Freire as Gestaltist

Abstract In this paper, I follow as much as possible the format and content of my workshop at the AAGT Conference in Cleveland, June 1998. I present the approach of the Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire and its connection to the theory and practice of Gestalt therapy. I pay particular attention to issues of power and domination as factors in education and in psychotherapy.

Religious Education for Liberation: A Perspective from Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire (1921‐1997) is famous for the development of his literacy method and, perhaps, is best remembered for his earlier books ‐ Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972), Cultural Action for Freedom (1972) and Education: the Practice of Freedom (1976). Although he continued to write and develop his thought into his later years,1 Freire's fundamental thesis that education was either for domestication or freedom remained the same. He did not invent the term ‘conscientisation’, but its introduction into educational and theological vocabulary is often attributed to him. In a keynote speech at The Royal Society of Arts in 1995, the then Archbishop of York, Dr John Habgood, recommended an approach to religious education characterised by ‘critical solidarity’. Having outlined Freire's ‘education for liberation’ and his central concept of conscientisation, the article demonstrates the surprising commonality between Freire's early writing and the Archbishop's recent development of the concept of critical solidarity. The article does not advocate the wholesale adoption of the Freire method. It recommends consideration of Freire's radical perspective as an enriching contribution to the development of an approach to religious education based on critical solidarity and consistent with the approach outlined in the Model Syllabuses. Such an approach has the capacity to be truly liberating, as it is centred on critical thinking and the concept of the autonomous learner. 1 The following are representative of Freire's more recent work: (1994,1973) Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Continuum); (1996) Letters to Christina: Reflections on My Life and Work (New York: Routledge); (1997) Pedagogy of the Heart (New York: Continuum); (1997) Politics and Education (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Centre Publication); (1998) Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press).

A Recommended Reading List for Teachers of Students Who Speak Ebonics

Many research-based approaches have been developed to help teachers successfully teach reading, speech, composition, and vocabulary to Ebonics-speaking African American students. Several of these approaches have been shown to yield positive results. Underlying each, however, are the following precepts: (1) teachers must have high expectations for Ebonics-speaking youth; (2) teachers must focus on these students', their families', and their communities' strengths; and (3) teachers must know how to use language with sensitivity so as not to demean, degrade, or otherwise embarrass Black students for speaking their culturally based dialect and thereby discourage them from engaging in the academic process. The resources listed below provide essential background information, research findings, examples from the field, and recommendations for practice-specifically directed toward and deemed of greatest use to teachers-about Ebonics, its role, and its significance in the education of African Americans. Many of these resources should be required reading for educators whose classrooms contain students who speak some form or degree of this vernacular. All of them should prove useful to anyone with either a professional or personal interest in understanding what research and practice say about the language and learning of Black children. Mary Rhodes Hoover, Howard University TEACHING READING Cureton, G. (1990). Using a Black learning style. In B. Shade (Ed.), Culture and style (pp. 149-155). Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Describes audience participatory learning style as an approach to teaching reading to Black bidialectal students. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people's children. New York: New Press. Discusses the challenges involved in teaching bidialectal children with sensitivity. Foorman, B. R., Francis, D. J., Beeler, T., Winikates, D., & Fletcher, J. M. (1997). Early intervention for children with reading problems: Study designs and preliminary findings. Learning Disabilities: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 8(1), 63-71. Reports on a study detailing the importance of teaching phonics as well as literature to bidialectal students. Freire, P. (1980). Cultural action for freedom (Harvard Educational Review Monograph Series, No. 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Review. Describes the Freireian method of using generative words (words that are culturally relevant and linguistically regular) to swiftly teach reading to students of color. Describes the method as an English-as-a-second language or semiforeign language approach that meets the special needs of bidialectal students just as bilingual programs meet the needs of bilingual students. Hoover, M., Dabney, N., & Lewis, S. (1990). Successful Black and minority schools. San Francisco: Julian Richardson. Identifies and describes several schools across the country in which Black students are successfully taught to read at above-grade levels despite their culturally based use of Ebonics and their impoverished family and community backgrounds. Hoover, M. (1992). The Nairobi Day School: An African American independent school, 1966-1984. Journal of Negro Education, 61(2), 201-210. Describes an independent school in which inner-city African American students, many of whose primary dialect was Ebonics, were taught reading from preschool to college levels. Explains how Ebonics-based raps were used to engage these students in reading and other academic activities. Hoover, M. (1997). Ebonics: Myths and realities. In T. Perry & L. Delpit (Eds.), The real Ebonics debate (pp. 71-76). Boston: Beacon Press. Emphasizes the need for an expanded view of Ebonics and a broadened approach to teaching reading to Ebonics speakers using phonics and literature. McNair-Knox, F. (1985). A foreign language approach to teaching reading to African American students. …

Critical literacy and emancipatory politics: The work of Paulo Freire

This paper argues that Freire's pedagogical ideas stand in marked reaction against a process of education characterised by prescription. In Freire's view, such a process consolidates sharply defined power relations and therefore perpetuates oppressive social forms. It argues that contained in Freire's pedagogy are the elements for a model of an alternative society. In the first section, attention is focused on Freire's analysis of the process of ideological domination as it takes place among the oppressed, with specific reference to the context which influenced the development of his pedagogical ideas. The second section provides an analytic exposition of the alternative pedagogy which Freire proposes with a view to contributing to what he calls ‘cultural action for freedom’. The third section consists of a discussion on the application of Freirean pedagogy in a post-revolutionary context. The pedagogy is here viewed as contributing to what Freire terms ‘cultural revolution’. Both ‘cultural action for freedom’ and ‘cultural revolution’ constitute key concepts for the development of critical literacy. Freire's pedagogy is here discussed for the most part with an industrially under-developed context in mind; for Freire's most significant pedagogical experiences were closely tied to these contexts.

Theatre of the Oppressed: Cultural Action for Freedom

This paper outlines the connections between the Lehrstucktheorie of Brecht, the pedagogy of Paolo Freire, and the theatrical practice and theory of Augusto Boal. It relates these areas to the current situation in higher education in England in general, and to a drama course at the New University of the West of England in particular.

Constructing knowledge in Brazilian universities: Case studies of faculty research

ABSTRACT How culture defines what is accepted as knowledge and how such knowledge is constructed by scientists in a newly industrialized country provide the questions that guide this inquiry. Specifically, this study questions from a critical perspective how the cultural web of scientists in a sample of Brazilian universities affects the construction of knowledge. Through consideration of the cultural and subjective features of the construction of knowledge, this inquiry proposes that consideration of local vs international research, the governmental infrastructure, the alternative ideology of cultural action for freedom, and the nature of the faculties themselves are central to understanding how knowledge is defined, valued and produced in Brazil. The comparative and critical focus presented in this study encourages researchers to understand both how culture affects conceptions of knowledge and how such perspectives are responsible for the knowledge constructed and valued in the society.

Essential Idioms in English: A New Revised Edition

Donohue, John W. 1972. Paulo Freire: philosopher of adult education. America 127(6): 167-170. Elias, John L. 1974. A comparison and critical evaluation of the social and educational thought of Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich: with a particular emphasis upon the religious inspiration of their thought. Ed. D. dissertation, Temple University. Freire, Paulo. 1970a. Cultural action for freedom. Monograph Series Number 1. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Educational Review and Center for the Study of Development and Social Change. Freire, Paulo. 1970b. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder.

Families Create Action Support Networks Family Power: Social Change Project

A visit to Australia (February 12-16, 1979) by Dr. Masamba ma Mpolo, Secretary of the Office of Family Education, World Council of Churches, Geneva, has stimulated great interest in the Family Power: Social Change project, which is part of the family ministries programme of the World Council of Churches.The project is rooted in insights I find exciting — the belief that families need not just succumb to external pressures and become victims of outside forces; they need not wait for commercial interests, television and radio, newspapers and magazines, films and advertisements, patronizing and matronizing social service bodies to tell them what to do, what to think, what to buy, what value systems to uphold, what goals for living to accept. They can become more self-reliant, more liberated, less other directed, be makers of history. Fatalistic, hand-wringing despair can be replaced by courageous grappling with issues, in a spirit of hope. In line with the Old Testament prophets, families can both denounce evil elements involving injustice and manipulation, and can announce new possibilities for a more truly human society (see Paulo Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom, Penguin).

New Directions for Management Education

Introduction This paper presents an educational philosophy and implied strategy derived from an analysis of the political basis of management education. This builds specifically upon the ideas of Paulo Freire as expressed in his Cultural Action For Freedom and Pedagogy of The Oppressed. The problem of ideology is met “head‐on” resulting in the definition of new directions for management education. Emphasis is upon the development in students of a capability for “self‐management”.

Literacy for the Favelas: Pedagogy of the Oppressed . Paulo Freire. Translated from the Portuguese (1968) by Myra Bergman Ramos. Herder and Herder, New York, 1970. 186 pp. $5.95.; Cultural Action for Freedom . Paulo Freire. Harvard Educational Review and Center for the Study of Development and Social Change, Cambridge, Mass., 1970. viii, 56 pp. Paper, $2. Reprinted from the

Literacy for the Favelas: <i>Pedagogy of the Oppressed</i> . Paulo Freire. Translated from the Portuguese (1968) by Myra Bergman Ramos. Herder and Herder, New York, 1970. 186 pp. $5.95.; <i>Cultural Action for Freedom</i> . Paulo Freire. Harvard Educational Review and Center for the Study of Development and Social Change, Cambridge, Mass., 1970. viii, 56 pp. Paper, $2. Reprinted from the

Cultural Action and Conscientization

In the May 1970 issue of the Review, Dr. Freire described the adult literacy process as an act of knowing through which a person is able to analyze critically the culture which has shaped him and to move toward reflection and positive action upon his world. Such education in Freire's view is cultural action for freedom, through authentic dialogue rather than for domestication. In this concluding section, the author proceeds to consider the philosophical basis and the social context of his own thought. With specific reference to Latin America, he discusses the emergence of the masses into the political process in the Third World and analyzes the levels of consciousness which characterize that emergence. Finally he discusses the nature and function of a truly liberating education in this period of historical transition.

The Adult Literacy Process as Cultural Action for Freedom

Dr. Freire writes from a Third World perspective, but with obvious implications for education in general. He rejects mechanistic conceptions of the adult literacy process, advocating instead a theory and practice based upon authentic dialogue between teachers and learners. Such dialogue, in Freire's approach, centers upon codified representations of the learners' existential situations and leads not only to their acquisition of literacy skills, but more importantly to their awareness of their right and capacity as human beings to transform reality. Becoming literate,then, means far more than learning to decode the written representation of a sound system. It is truly an act of knowing, through which a person is able to look critically at the culture which has shaped him, and to move toward reflection and positive action upon his world.