University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2019 Re/Reading Paulo Freire & Lorenzo Milani: Critical Pedagogies for the 21st Century Simone Gugliotta University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Gugliotta, Simone, "Re/Reading Paulo Freire & Lorenzo Milani: Critical Pedagogies for the 21st Century" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 1651. https://doi.org/10.7275/14225351 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1651 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Re/Reading Paulo Freire & Lorenzo Milani: Critical Pedagogies for the 21st Century A Dissertation Presented by SIMONE MARIA GUGLIOTTA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2019 College of Education Language, Literacy, and Culture Concentration © Copyright by Simone M. Gugliotta 2019 All Rights Reserved ii Re/Reading Paulo Freire & Lorenzo Milani: Critical Pedagogies for the 21st Century A Dissertation Presented By SIMONE MARIA GUGLIOTTA Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________________________ Maria José Botelho, Chair _______________________________________________________ Theresa Austin, Member _______________________________________________________ Claudio Moreira, Member _______________________________________________________ Roberto Ludovico, Member _______________________________________ Jennifer Randall Associate Dean of Academic Affairs College of Education iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family, friends and students from around the world, who together, form one nation. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The journey of writing a dissertation using ethnographic case studies has moments of great euphoria generated by frenetic activities such as finding contacts, visiting varied locations, meeting and observing new people, and being observed. Subsequently, a researcher does much talking, listening, responding, learning, teaching, understanding, not belonging, then belonging, so much of which is hard to leave behind. After all the positive turmoil of chasing ideas in the field, a needed quiet period arrives in order to delve into the vast amount of collected data and readings to build something anew. Saudade (a feeling similar to longing) also occurs while listening to other students’ and educators’ voices. In my case, a feeling of being accompanied by Freire’s and Milani’s legacy helped me stay focused through the building of a conversation between them and (hopefully) future readers of my work. Now I must also look back and acknowledge and express how important people were in this long process. I start with a big muito obrigada (thank you very much in Portuguese) to Maria José Botelho, my mentor during my program of study in Language, Literacy, and Culture (LLC) and the chair of my committee. I am grateful for her guidance through the many possibilities of study in the critical literacy field. Deconstructing, problematizing, and rebuilding understandings of old and new ideas in a critical manner together helped me to re/read the world and re/visit the lives and minds of Paulo Freire and Lorenzo Milani. I would like to say muchas gracias to Theresa Austin, also a wonderful mentor, not only for being on my committee, but for introducing me to the study of multilingualism and heritage language. She taught me how to build the strength to be a v researcher who stays in touch with communities to help preserve languages, cultures, and memories. Her critical mind and insightful questions were and always will be great motivations. A very loud grazie mille goes to Roberto Ludovico for joining the committee and for the years as my first mentor in the graduate school master’s program. I will be always thankful for his great inspiration to help me not give up during difficult times and to pursue a PhD. I admire his kindness, sophisticated humor, and commitment to helping his students to believe in themselves. Another muito obrigada to Claudio Moreira for being on my committee and for his great inquiring attitude about my research interests during our conversations. I was particularly proud to participate in such a liberating and progressive class with a conational professor. It was in his class where I was first introduced to Performance Ethnography. This study exists only due to the generosity of students, educators, workers, and principals from two public schools in Brazil and Italy. They will remain unnamed in order to respect privacy commitments with the students and schools, but they know who they are! This project also exists because of the kindness of Edoardo Martinelli, Ira Shor, and Giovanni Banchi. They dedicated many hours answering e-mails, speaking with me, and meeting in person. I am grateful for my professors and friendships from the LLC Program, and also for the writing groups that we formed along the way. Margaret Felis, Jasmine Robinson, Yvone Fariño, Marsha Jing-Ji Liaw, Shingi Kawamitsu, and Hyunsook Shin: thank you vi for your insights, articles, laughter, and even some tears. All inspired me in the writing process and made me feel less lonely during this journey. I also want to thank everyone else who helped me directly or indirectly. I will mention some here but know I will miss many: L’Tanya Robinson, Kyra Andersen, Elena Langdon, Tatiana Ribeiro, Maria Pia Zinni, Giordano Iapalucci, Elio Iapalucci, Marguerite Harrison, Malcolm McNee, Ero Silva, Giovanna Bellesia, Maria Succi- Hempstead, Anna Botta, Guido Reverdito, Cristiano Mazzei, Euripedes Oliveira, Elsa Petit, Lorenzo Sorbo, Antonella Sisto, Michael DiPasquale, Roland Merullo, and Ken Stow. And for the joy of putting in motion one of my project findings, designing multimodal and multidisciplinary classes that combine Romance languages, critical pedagogy, linguistics, and heritage language, thank you to Giovanna Bellesia (again), Luiz Amaral, and Cara Takajian. I am also grateful for my mother Maria Gugliotta and siblings Sandra, Rosangela, and Alex’s support. And Chris Matera, my husband, deserves a great big thank you for (nearly) unwavering support and patience. I appreciate his interest in Freire’s and Milani’s ideas, even citing them in heated conversations on politics and critical consciousness with friends and family. His lovely framed picture of a cat barely hanging onto a rope by a single paw with the saying “hang in there” was a remarkable gift, not only because I love cats, but because of its encouragement to keep going. I will be always grateful for his love, for some editing help, and for closing the door during his weekend guitar practices. vii ABSTRACT RE/READING PAULO FREIRE & LORENZO MILANI: CRITICAL PEDAGOGIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY MAY 2019 SIMONE MARIA GUGLIOTTA, B.A., UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO AND UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL FLUMINENSE M.A.T., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Maria José Botelho Philosophers and practitioners of education Paulo Freire (Brazil, 1921-1997) and Lorenzo Milani (Italy, 1923-1967) promulgated pioneering theories and practices akin to critical, multiple, and multimodal literacies pedagogies, and social justice. Although they were contemporaries, Milani and Freire neither met nor exchanged their views on education. This study explores the influence of their pedagogies in two public schools in Brazil and Italy. In addition, it facilitates a dialogue between the two educators’ work, as well as among those who either worked with them or are aligned with their philosophies. Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy is combined with the discourse and power theories of Foucault, Gee, and Janks, and these interwoven dialogues are augmented with a narrative approach in the process of analyzing interviews. For data collection, I spoke with scholars and practitioners who worked with Freire and Milani, and documented observations made during extensive visits to Milani- and Freire-inspired schools. This project combines case studies and ethnography methodologies. It also employs art-based representation and performance ethnography in the literature review through an imaginary exchange of letters both between the two educators, and between me and them. In my role as both researcher viii and participant, I have investigated the ways that Freire’s and Milani’s pedagogies foster critical consciousness in these school communities. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………..….....v ABSTRACT.……………………………………………………………………viii LIST OF TABLES.…………………………………………….………...….….xiii LIST OF FIGURES.…………………………………………….………......…. xiv CHAPTER 1. RE/VISITING FREIFE AND MILANI: AN INTRODUCTION.......................1 My Positionality and Identity.......................................................................3 Statement of Problem.................................................................................12 Limitations of the Study…………………………………………………15 Theoretical Framework .............................................................................16