Pedagogia do oprimido is one of the few attempts anywhere to implement something like democracy as an educational method and not merely a goal of democratic education.
The first chapter explores how oppression has been justified and how it is overcome through a mutual process between the "oppressor" and the "oppressed". Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He writes, "Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion." According to Freire, freedom will be the result of praxis - informed action - when a balance between theory and practice is achieved.
The second chapter examines the "banking" approach to education -- a metaphor used by Freire that suggests students are considered empty bank accounts that should remain open to deposits made by the teacher. Freire rejects the "banking" approach, claiming it results in the dehumanisation of both the students and the teachers. In addition, he argues the banking approach stimulates oppressive attitudes and practices in society. Instead, Freire advocates for a more world-mediated, mutual approach to education that considers people incomplete. According to Freire, this "authentic" approach to education must allow people to be aware of their incompleteness and strive to be more fully human. This attempt to use education as a means of consciously shaping the person and the society is called conscientization.
Freire argues that words involve a radical interaction between reflection and action and that true words are transformational. Dialogue, and dialogics-"the essence of education as the practice of freedom"- requires mutual respect and cooperation to not only develop understanding, but also to change the world. "Authentic" education, according to Freire, will involve dialogue between the teacher and the student, mediated by the broader world context. He warns that the limits imposed upon both the colonizer and the colonized dehumanize everyone involved, thereby removing the ability for dialogue to occur, inevitably barring the possibility of transformation.
The last chapter proposes dialogics as an instrument to free the colonized, through the use of cooperation, unity, organization and cultural synthesis (overcoming problems in society to liberate human beings). This is in contrast to antidialogics which use conquest, manipulation, cultural invasion, and the concept of divide and rule. Freire suggests that populist dialogue is a necessity to revolution; that impeding dialogue dehumanizes and supports the status quo.
The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century.
Created by global civil society, endorsed by thousands of organizations and institutions, the Charter is not only a call to action, but a motivating force inspiring change the world over.
The Freire Project is dedicated to building an international critical community which works to promote social justice in a variety of cultural contexts. We are committed to conducting and sharing critical research in social, political, and educational locations.
The project promotes research in Critical Pedagogy, and brings together local and international educators. We are committed to continuing the global development of Critical Pedagogy and to highlighting its relevance with marginalized and indigenous peoples.
At the heart of their commitment to tackle poverty is the belief that it is within local communities that the most effective and sustainable development initiatives are to be found. Children in Crossfire supports local initiatives that improve the daily lives for people living in some of the world's poorest communities - for instance, greater income-earning opportunities, improved health facilities, or clean water supplies.
The Women project wants to underline their pivotal role and to highlight their dignity by shooting them in their daily lives and posting them on the walls of their country.
A double is haunting the world-the double of abstraction, the virtual reality of information, programming or poetry, math or music, curves or colorings upon which the fortunes of states and armies, companies and communities now depend.
The bold aim of this book is to make manifest the origins, purpose, and interests of the emerging class responsible for making this new world-for producing the new concepts, new perceptions, and new sensations out of the stuff of raw data.
A Hacker Manifesto deftly defines the fraught territory between the ever more strident demands by drug and media companies for protection of their patents and copyrights and the pervasive popular culture of file sharing and pirating. This vexed ground, the realm of so-called "intellectual property," gives rise to a whole new kind of class conflict, one that pits the creators of information--the hacker class of researchers and authors, artists and biologists, chemists and musicians, philosophers and programmers--against a possessing class who would monopolize what the hacker produces.
Drawing in equal measure on Guy Debord and Gilles Deleuze, A Hacker Manifesto offers a systematic restatement of Marxist thought for the age of cyberspace and globalization. In the widespread revolt against commodified information, McKenzie Wark sees a utopian promise, beyond the property form, and a new progressive class, the hacker class, who voice a shared interest in a new information commons.
TINAG creates platforms for emerging academics, activists, human rights canvassers, artists, politicians, writers, musicians, architects and more, whose point of departure is the city. TINAG is interested in building platforms for those outside of established circuits including illegal immigrants, travelers and people living in cities of past or continuing conflict.
The Would Jesus Discriminate? Campaign and program is designed to engage people of all backgrounds and in all communities in the important topic of discrimination in order to spur a positive shift in our attitudes toward others. For millennia, societies and religions have participated in discrimination against their members in overt and subtle ways. From perspectives of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity to the more subtle ongoing oppression regarding health, age and language...