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Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paperback – January 1, 1974

by Paulo Freire (Author)

4.7 1,269 ratings

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Years before Paulo Freire was “invited” by the Brazilian government to leave his homeland after the military coup of 1964, he had begun devoting his life to the advancement of the fortunes of the impoverished people of Brazil. After his twenty-year exile he moved first to Chile, then emigrated to the United States before returning to Brazil. In the course of his work and travels in the Third World, and as a result of his studies in philosophy of education, he evolved a theory for the education of people who are illiterate, especially adults, based on the conviction that every human being, no matter how “ignorant” or submerged in the “culture of silence,” is capable of looking critically at the world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such an encounter, the individual can gradually perceive his or her personal and social reality, and deal critically with it. When an illiterate peasant participates in this sort of educational experience he or she comes to a new awareness of self, a new sense of dignity. "I now realize I am a person, an educated person.” “We were blind, now our eyes have been opened.” “Before this, words meant nothing to me; now they speak to me and I can make them speak.” “I work, and working I transform the world.” As the illiterate person learns and is able to make such statements, the world becomes radically transformed and he or she is no longer willing to be a mere object responding to uncontrollable change. This radical self-awareness is not only the task of workers in the Third World, but of people in this country as well, including those who in our advanced technological society have been or are being programmed into conformity and thus are essentially part of the “culture of silence."

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000O5S91S
Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Seabury Press; 15th edition (January 1, 1974)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 186 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0816491321
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0816491322
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #2,762,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16,964 in Foreign Language Reference

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Keith Brown

Invaluable for educators and people who care about education.

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2021

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As someone who tries to be a good teacher, I've found a lot of goodness and solid practice in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I was exposed to it through Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed, which builds off of the frameworks that Freire lays out. The theory about radicalization and oppression at the beginning can be incredibly dense, to the point of feeling impenitrable. But, once I was able to get past that, I felt like I had a new perspective on my work in a classroom.

10 people found this helpful

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Mike Jones

The most annoying 5-star read ever

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2013

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I'm giving this 5 stars because the message, I think, is SO SO important: The mission of an educator should not be to teach them "the material," but to equip, inspire, and support students to question and transform their world into a place free from the violence cycles of oppression.

I was tempted to take off a star or two for what other readers have mentioned-- that his writing is incredibly pedantic. But I guess that's to be expected; this is a scientific deconstruction of oppression and the role of revolutionary education. I would recommend this book to all-- especially young-- educators (I am one). We need to question WHY we teach what we teach, and what kind of world we want students to create-- Paulo Friere gives a brilliant, though slow, examination of these questions.

22 people found this helpful

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Whitney Nieves

Eye opening

Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2019

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I had to read this book for one of my graduate classes. It looks into groups of oppression, explaining how it came to be, and how it’s harming our public school system. I recommend it, especially for k-12 teachers.

7 people found this helpful

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Ashley

Knowledgable

Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2020

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Great book that has been hard to find, thank you for having it and for such a great value

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Basilio Hernandez

Liberating education is key to a thriving society . Thank you Freire

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2020

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Amazing book. A Revolutionary masterpiece. All agents of change and revolutionaries should read this work of enlightenment , responsibility, freedom and love.

One person found this helpful

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Zena Al Safar

Okay quality

Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2023

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The order arrived pretty fast and is of good quality.

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Lisa Brown

I will read this again and agu

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2021

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I will read this again and again

One person found this helpful

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Trent Bailey

Great book by Friere

Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2017

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Great book by Friere, and a guide to understanding what it takes to not only lead other from oppression, but how to get others to lead themselves with you out of that same oppression.

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Khadija A.

Must read

Reviewed in Canada on November 2, 2022

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This book will change your life. A must read.

One person found this helpful

christopher Sandy

Great book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2023

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Very relevant to our present intercultural dynamic with the racial tendencies that permeate our diversities

One person found this helpful

Kurt Lehberger

Human beings learn to swim in the water, not in a library.

Reviewed in Germany on February 27, 2021

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The book is very inspiring. As I work with people in projects, I have found Paulo Freire's concepts particularly useful and transferable to today's world. Here are the main insights that I have extracted.
What we do not want is that teachers who teach passive entities and fill it in the students like bank deposits under the impression that the students consider the piece of knowledge as true. The intention is that they get more passive and that they will adapt easier in the world as it is. This concept is contrarily to the concept of liberation and emancipation. It is a kind of oppression. The dialogical approach is beneficial for both the teacher and the student. In the educational process arguments based on authority can no longer be valid and accepted. Authority must be on the side of freedom and not against it (p. 53). Through dialogue with teacher-student and student-teacher the participants become jointly responsible for the educational process. They learn from the teacher and get taught teaching. Both will grow in this process, being mediated by the world and their cognizable objects.
Their responses to new challenges will follow by new understandings. This is the education of freedom and of liberation. This is as well problem posing education. The task is to demythologizing and de-alienation the facts in the world. The dialog is indispensable to get the real concept of the world and to unveil the reality. This kind of education makes the students critical thinkers. The intention is to give the people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human (p. 57).
The real situation is the beginning to determine the perception of it and the move from it. The situation must be perceived as authentical and merely limited but not fated. Then the situation might be challenging but as well changeable. The deepening of the consciousness of the situation leads to the understanding that this is a historical reality which is object of transformation. The true dialogue requires the critical thinkers. The critical thinker perceives the reality as process as a continuing transformation of reality with the objective to the humanization of men.
The historical themes are never isolated. They are always interacting dialectically with their opposites. Often myth-creating irrationality threatens and only be critical and dynamic view of the world the reality can be unveiled and transformed in the favor of the liberation of the people and the humanization of the mankind (p. 75).
Humans are in the dialectical situation between the determination of limits and their own freedom. To overcome the limit-situation men must separate the world from their own actions. Men must perceive their decisions as independently from the boundaries of the world. Their decisions are evolving from the relationship from themselves to the world and from the relationship to others. The historical consciousness leads to this transcendental power enabling to respond to the unlimited challenges. The historical themes can only be found in the human-world relationships. These themes constitute the epochal achievement in a dialectical kind of development. The themes and concepts are with opposites and the compete against each other. The outcome is a result of a complex of opposing interacting of human beings.
When the limit-situation is not clearly perceived, the actions will not be authentical historical actions. In this situation, humans are unable to transcend the limit-situations to discover the realm of the “untested feasibility” or the sphere of the unperceived practicable solutions. The present consciousness prevents the perceiving the "untested feasibility" which lies beyond the limit-situations. To go deeper in the concept the reader should look into Lucien Goldman's concept of potential consciousness and real or present consciousness. To achieve the potential consciousness men must perform the "testing action" and discover the new feasibility and not yet proved feasibility. This requires the investigation of meaningful themes.
The educators or investigators or leaders can play the role of acceleration by projection of a clear and simple codification of an existential situation. The research on the successful codification indicates that if a first codification is found that is essential, means a basic nucleus of truth has been perceives and this opens into a thematic extension with many following codifications. After the decoding of the essential situation is the projected image can be taken as a reference for further auxiliary codifications. The participants are enabled to reach a synthesis.
The untested feasibility will be discovered in the process of critical thinking, dialogue, and actions, accompanied by failures and rectifications. Human beings learn to swim in the water, not in a library. If there is a leader, a facilitator, a coach, or an investigator the process will be more effective and get more power to the social movement in the direction of epochal improvement.

2 people found this helpful