He explains here why one without the other is an ‘inauthentic’ engagement in reality: Praxis is a central concept in Freire’s methodology and represents a combination of action and reflection to facilitate analysis of a problem and a remedial action to address it. In response, Freire offered ‘something quite new and creative in educational philosophy’ to support the ‘critical intervention of the people in reality through praxis’ (35).

Moreover, as Richard Schaull argues in his ‘Foreword’ to ‘Pedagogy’, ‘the whole education system was one of the major instruments for the maintenance of this culture of silence’ (Ibid). So, the book remains a hotbed of debate half a century on from its publication.įreire’s direct experience of poverty in the aftermath of the 1929 global economic crisis brought with it a realisation that the ‘ignorance’ and ‘lethargy’ of the poor was in fact a ‘culture of silence’ created by their social, cultural and political domination (Freire, 1996: 12). ‘Pedagogy’ was one of the texts used on an ethno-studies programme taught to Native Americans and Chicanos, and the books ‘were seized from classrooms right in front of students’, who learned first-hand about oppression (Bernstein, 2012).

Pedagogy of the Oppressed was banned in apartheid South Africa, parts of Latin America and, in 2010 in Tucson, Arizona by right-wing policymakers who prohibited texts that ‘promote the overthrow of the US government’ (Rodriquez, 2018). Having been posthumously made a Patron of Education in 2012, an ally of far-right president Bolsonaro, tried (and failed) to have the title stripped from Freire in 2018 (Lima, 2019). His influence is still hotly debated in Brazil. Forced to flee his native Brazil following a military coup in 1964, Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed while in exile in Chile and he remains a touchstone figure for social justice and equality activists in the global North and South. Born in 1921 in Recife, Brazil, Freire was a philosopher, educator and activist who worked with illiterate peasants using a revolutionary methodology that elevated education beyond the classroom to wider social and economic transformation.

The fiftieth anniversary of the publication in English of Paulo Freire’s seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1996 ), offers the opportunity for a re-appraisal in the age of climate emergency, populist nationalism and fake news. Freire, P (1996 ) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, London and New York: Penguin Books.

Pedagogy of the oppressed publisher