Defending freirean intervention

Educational Theory

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 335-352

  Roberts, Peter ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0009200826     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.1996.00335.x     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. For an affirmation of Freire's influence, and a critical reappraisal of his work, see Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, eds., Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (London: Routledge, 1993)
2. Peter McLaren and Colin Lankshear, eds., Politics of Liberation: Paths from Freire (London: Routledge, 1994).
3. Freire outlines his approach to adult literacy education in two early texts: Paulo Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom (London: Writers and Readers, 1976)
4. Paulo Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom (Harmondsworth: Penguin, For summaries and analyses of Freire's literacy work, 1972)
5. Cynthia Brown, "Literacy in 30 Hours: Paulo Freire's Process in Northeast Brazil," Social Policy 5, no. 2 (1974): 25-32
6. T.G. Sanders, "The Paulo Freire Method: Literacy Training and Conscientization," in Education and Development: Latin America and the Caribbean, ed. T.J. La Belle (Latin American Center, 1972)
7. Barbara Bee, "The Politics of Literacy," in Literacy and Revolution: The Pedagogy of Paulo Freire, ed. Robert Mackie (London: PlutcfPress, 1980)
8. Paul V. Taylor, The Texts of Paulo Freire (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993)
9. Peter Roberts, "Education, Dialogue and Intervention: Revisiting the Freirean Project," Educational Studies 20, no. 3 (1994): 307-27.
10. On education and humanization, see Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
11. On the nonneutrality of education, compare, among many other sources, Paulo Freire, "Education: Domestication or Liberation?" Prospects 2, no. 2 (1972), 173-74
12. Paulo Freire, "Letter to North American Educators," in Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching, ed. Ira Shor (New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook, 1987)
13. Questions about disclosure and imposition are explored at length in Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope (New York: Continuum, 1994).
14. The relationship between "word" and "world" is central to Freire's theory of literacy. See Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987).
15. Freire's later works are especially helpful in highlighting the importance of structure and rigor in dialogical education. See Paulo Freire and Ira Shor, A Pedagogy for Liberation (London: MacMillan, 1987)
16. Paulo Freire and Antonio Faundez, Learning to Question: A Pedagogy of Liberation (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1989)
17. Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990)
18. Freire, Pedagogy of Hope. This theme has been investigated at length in Peter Roberts, "Structure, Direction and Rigour in Liberating Education," Oxford Review of Education 22 (1996).
19. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, chap. 2
20. Paulo Freire, Politics of Education (London: MacMillan, 1985), 1-4.
21. C.A. Bowers, "Linguistic Roots of Cultural Invasion in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy," Teachers College Record 84, no. 4 (1983): 935-53. This work will be referred to as LR with page numbers in the text for all subsequent citations. Bowers also refers to Freire's work in a number of other publications, including
22. C.A. Bowers, "The Problem of Individualism and Community in Neo-Marxist Educational Thought," Teachers College Record 85, no. 3 (1984): 365-90
23. C.A. Bowers, "Review of The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation," Educational Studies 17, no. 1 (1986): 147-54
24. C.A. Bowers Elements of a Post-Liberal Theory of Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1987).
25. The letters were published in Paulo Freire, Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea-Bissau (London: Writers and Readers, 1978).
26. Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom, 41-84
27. Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 81-95
28. Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom, 29-47.
29. Compare Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom, 99.
30. Stanley Aronowitz, "Paulo Freire's Radical Democratic Humanism, "in McLaren and Leonard, Paulo Freire, 8-24.
31. For an excellent discussion of Freire's position on "experience," see Peter McLaren and Tomaz Tadeu da Silva, "Decentering Pedagogy: Critical Literacy, Resistance and the Politics of Memory," in McLaren and Leonard, Paulo Freire, 47-89.
32. Peter Roberts, "Rethinking Conscientization," Journal of Philosophy of Education 30, no. 2 (1996): 175-92.
33. Ronald Scollon and Suzanne B.K. Scollon, Linguistic Convergence: An Ethnography of Speaking at Fort Chipewyan, Alberta (New York: Academic Press, 1979).
34. See, for example, Freire and Shor, Pedagogy for Liberation, 171-72.
35. Kevin Harris, "Empowering Teachers: Towards a Justification for Intervention," Journal of Philosophy of Education 24, no. 2 (1990): 180-81.
36. In recent texts, Freire makes it plain that the teacher cannot be a mere facilitator
37. See Horton and Freire, We Make the Road by Walking, 180
38. Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, "A Dialogue: Culture, Language, and Race," Harvard Educational Review 65, no. 3 (1995): 377-402.
39. Freire and Faundez, Learning to Question, 34.
40. Scollon and Scollon, Linguistic Convergence, 188.
41. Scollon and Scollon, in Linguistic Convergence, 178-92, summarize these four dimensions of the Chipewyan worldview.
42. From the 1970 Brazilian census, cited in Taylor, Texts of Paulo Freire, 18.
43. Comments from Josue de Castro, cited in Taylor, Texts of Paulo Freire, 16.
44. Tad Szulc, cited in cited in Taylor, Texts of Paulo Freire, 17.
45. Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom, 62.
46. Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom, 17.
47. Freire, Cultural Action for Freedom, 62.
48. It is important, of course, not to ignore or underestimate the extent of peasant resistance to oppressive structures and practices. For an insightful discussion of the subtle and hidden forms of resistance in peasant societies, see James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
49. Compare, Taylor, Texts of Paulo Freire, on the changes between 1960 and 1970. 32. It should be noted, moreover, that much of Freire's educational work has been initiated by invitation. In other words, his "intervention" has been actively sought out be others. This (further) weakens the argument that Freire's pedagogy is imperialist. It is possible, as an anonymous referee has observed, that different types of education may accomplish different kinds of liberation. This proposition might provide a useful starting point for further critical work on Bowers and Freire.
50. It should be noted, moreover, that much of there' educational work has been initiated by invitation. In other words, his "intervention" has been actively sought out be others. This (further) weakene the argument that there' pedagogy is imperlalist. It is possible, an anonymous refee has ovserved, that different types of education may accomplish different kinds of liberation. this proposition might provide a useful starting point for further critical work on Bowers and Freire.
51. An alternative line of argument is possible here. A person might often question the idea that no ideas cannot be questioned, entertaining the possibility that there may well be some absolutes, but acknowledging that he or she has not found them yet. If such absolutes are (subsequently) discovered, that person may then change his or her view that no ideas cannot be questioned. I owe this point to an anonymous referee.
52. See, for example, the discussion of dialogue in Freire and Shor, Pedagogy for Liberation, 101-2.
53. Compare, among other statements, Freire's concise discussion of reading and the act of study in Freire, The Politics of Education, 1-4. Freire's views on the characteristics of the critical reader have been explored and applied in Peter Roberts, "Philosophy, Education and Literacy: Some Comments on Bloom," New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 28, no. 2 (1993): 165-80
54. Peter Roberts, "Critical Literacy, Breadih of Perspective, and Universities: Applying Insights from Freire," Studies in Higher Education 21, no. 2 (1996), 149-63.
55. For an extended discussion of the levels of consciousness identified by Freire in his early work, and a reappraisal of the notion of conscientization, see Roberts, "Rethinking Conscientization."
56. C.A. Bowers, "Critical Pedagogy and the 'Arch of Social Dreaming': A Response to the Criticisms of Peter McLaren," Curriculum inquiry 21, no. 4 (1991): 483
57. C.A. Bowers, "Some Questions About the Anachronistic Elements in the Giroux-McLaren Theory of Critical Pedagogy," Curriculum Inquiry 21, no. 2 (1991): 239-52
58. Peter McLaren, "The Emptiness of Nothingness: Criticism as Imperial Anti-Politics," Curriculum Inquiry 21, no. 4 (1991): 459-77
59. Bowers, "Linguistic Roots of Cultural invasion." I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing this to my attention.
60. Freire and Macedo, "A Dialogue: Culture, Language, and Race"
61. Peter Roberts, "The Danger of Domestication: A Case-Study, International Journal of Lifelong Education, no. 2 (1996), 94-106.
62. Bowers makes this explicit in an article published in 1986, where he maintains, "Freire's theory, by presenting us with an over simplified view of tradition one he inherited from the Enlightenment, leads to an intellectual stance that would reject as reactionary any consideration of the possibility that traditions can be sources of individual meaning, empowerment, and bonding to the shared life of the community
63. Bowers, "Review of The Politics of Education, 150.
64. Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom, 18, emphasis mine.
65. Freire, Education: The Practice of Freedom, 117.