Pedagogy of Freedom

by Paulo Freire

This volume looks at the territory of learning and activism, the essence of human life. This book shows why an engaged way of learning and teaching is central to the creation of the individual, culture and history. The author, Paulo Freire, finds in the emerging global society a new context in which education cannot be indifferent to the reproduction of dominant ideologies and the interrogation of them. Freire shows why an acceptance of fatalism leads to loss of personal and societal freedoms, he argues against progressive liberalsim and its acceptance of a world where poverty must inevitably coexist with opulence.

Paperback | 176 pages | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; 1st Edition Paperback | 2000

Paulo Freire (1921—1997) was an educator/philosopher born in 1921 in Recife, Brazil. In 1947 he began work with adult illiterates in North-East Brazil and gradually evolved a method of work with which the word conscientization has been associated.

Paulo Freire’s work has influenced people working in education, community development, community health, and many other fields. Freire developed an approach to education that links the identification of issues to positive action for change and development.

For Freire, the educational process is never neutral. People can be passive recipients of knowledge — whatever the content — or they can engage in a ‘problem-posing’ approach in which they become active participants. As part of this approach, it is essential that people link knowledge to action so that they actively work to change their societies at a local level and beyond.