Education, Literacy, and Humanization: Exploring the Work of Paulo Freire

by Peter Roberts

Overview

The author adopts a holistic approach in exploring the ontological, epistemological, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions of Paulo Freire's thought. The book discusses Freire's approach to adult literacy education and investigates the political, dialogical, and critical aspects to the multidimensional word in Freirean theory.

The author outlines and assesses a number of key critiques of Freire's modernism, concentrating in particular on questions pertaining to the problem of pedagogical intervention. He responds at some length to C.A. Bowers, one of Freire's most important and persistent critics, and finds fault with behaviorist, stage-based accounts of consciousness raising. The Freirean concept of conscientization is reinterpreted in light of the postmodern notion of multiple subjectivities. From this book, Freire emerges as a complex educational figure: a thinker and teacher deeply committed to the universalist ideal of humanization, yet also wary of some of the exaggerated certainties of modernism. His work, for all its flaws and contradictions, remains highly influential and stands opposed to technicist and neoliberal tendencies in recent educational reform initiatives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897895712
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/30/2000
Series:	Critical Studies in Education and Culture Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

PETER ROBERTS is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Reading Freire
Knowledge, Dialogue, and Humanization: Exploring Freire's Philosophy
Ethics, Politics, and Pedagogy: Freire on Liberating Education
Freirean Adult Literacy Education
Extending Literate Horizons: Freire and the Multidimensional Word
Critiques of Freire's Modernism
Defending Freirean Intervention
Rethinking Conscientization
Bibliography
Index