Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Paulo Freire
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of educator Paulo
Freire's works. It proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between
teacher, student, and society.
Dedicated to what is called "the oppressed," Freire includes a detailed
Marxist class analysis in his exploration of the relationship between what
he calls "the colonizer" and "the colonized." From his own experience
helping Brazilian adults to read and write, the book remains popular among
educators all over the world and is one of the foundations of critical
pedagogy.
According to Donaldo Macedo, a former colleague of Freire and University
of Massachusetts professor, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a revolutionary
text, and people in totalitarian states risk punishment reading it. The book
has sold over 750 000 copies worldwide.
Summary
Translated into several languages, most editions of Pedagogy of the
Oppressed contain at least one introduction/foreword, a preface, and four
chapters.
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." (47) According to Freire, freedom will be the
result of praxis--informed action—when a balance between theory and
