PAULO FREIRE Paulo Freire is one of the century’s great thinkers on education and the poli- tics of liberation. Known mostly for his literacy campaigns in Latin America and Africa, and for his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, his think- ing continues to be rediscovered by generations of teachers, scholars, com- munity activists and cultural workers in Europe and North America, While his name is synonymous with the practice of ‘Critical Literacy’ and ‘A Peda- gogy of Liberation’, his work has been appropriated in many diverse fields of discipline and site-based projects of social reform. This volume represents a pathfinding analysis of Freire’s work and in many cases it offers an extension of his thinking in order to make it more applicable to First World contexts. Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard have brought together a divergent group of scholars widely recognized for their contributions to critical theory and critical pedagogy. Themes addressed include Freire’s relation to feminist critique, his philosophical roots and an evaluation of his ideas from postmodernist and postcolonialist perspectives. The collection will be essential reading for anyone interested in the radical sociology of education and the politics of liberation. Peter McLaren is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Peter Leonard is Professor of Social Work at McGill University, Montreal. This page intentionally left blank. PAULO FREIRE A critical encounter Edited by Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard London and New York The editors wish to give special thanks to Chris Rojek for his encouragement and advice throughout this project. First published in 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 1993 Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard, selection and editorial matter; each author, the individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 0-203-42026-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-72850-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-03895-2 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-08792-9 (pbk) CONTENTS Notes on the contributors vii Foreword Paulo Freire ix Preface Cornel West xiii Editors’ introduction Absent discourses: Paulo Freire and the dangerous memories of liberation 1 1PAULO FREIRE’S RADICAL DEMOCRATIC HUMANISM Stanley Aronowitz 8 2EDUCATION IS POLITICS: PAULO FREIRE’S CRITICAL PEDAGOGY Ira Shor 24 3KNOWLEDGE UNDER SIEGE: THE BRAZILIAN DEBATE Tomaz Tadeu da Silva and Peter McLaren 36 4DECENTERING PEDAGOGY: CRITICAL LITERACY, RESISTANCE AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY Peter McLaren and Tomaz Tadeu da Silva 47 5FUNCTIONAL LITERACY FROM A FREIREAN POINT OF VIEW Colin Lankshear 90 6FROM THE PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED TO A LUTA CONTINUA: THE POLITICAL PEDAGOGY OF PAULO FREIRE Carlos Alberto Torres 119 vi PAULO FREIRE 7BELL HOOKS SPEAKING ABOUT PAULO FREIRE—THE MAN, HIS WORK bell hooks 145 8CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND STATE WELFARE: INTELLECTUAL ENCOUNTERS WITH FREIRE AND GRAMSCI, 1974–86 Peter Leonard 153 9A DIALOGUE WITH PAULO FREIRE Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo 167 10PAULO FREIRE AND THE POLITICS OF POSTCOLONIALISM Henry A.Giroux 175 Name index 187 Subject index 189 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS Stanley Aronowitz is a former trade union activist and steelworker. He is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Cultural Studies Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His most recent book is The Politics of Identity: Class, Culture and Social Movements. Henry A.Giroux holds the Waterbury Chair Professorship at Pennsylva- nia State University. His most recent book is Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education. bell hooks is the author of Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics and, with Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She is Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Oberlin College, Colin Lankshear is an educational consultant and writer based in Palmer- ston North, New Zealand. He has had a continuing involvement in research and small-scale developing projects in Nicaragua since 1984. Formerly with the Education Department at Auckland University, his books include Liter- acy, Schooling and Revolution and Critical Literacy: Politics, Praxis and the Postmodern (with Peter McLaren). Peter Leonard is Professor of Social Work at McGill University, Mon- treal; formerly Professor of Applied Social Studies at the University of War- wick, UK. He is author of Personality and Ideology and other books and papers, and General Editor of Critical Texts in Social Work and the Welfare State. He is currently President of the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work. Donaldo Macedo is Professor of English and Director of the Bilingual Education and ESL Programs at the University of Massachusetts. He has co- authored, with Paulo Freire, Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Peter McLaren is Renowned Scholar in Residence and Director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies at Miami University, Ohio. He is also Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership. He is the author of Schooling as a Ritual Performance, Life in Schools and is the co-editor with Henry A.Giroux of Critical Pedagogy, the State, and Cultural viii PAULO FREIRE Struggle. Professor McLaren is on the international advisory board of the Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil. Ira Shor is Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City Uni- versity of New York. With Paulo Freire, he co-authored A Pedagogy for Lib- eration. His other books are Critical Teaching and Everyday Life, Empower- ing Education and Culture Wars: School and Society in the Conservative Restoration, 1969–1991. Tomaz Tadeu da Silva is Professor of Theory of Curriculum in the Department of Teaching and Curriculum at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He also teaches Sociology of Education in the Gradu- ate Program of Education at the same university. His writings on curriculum and the sociology of education have been published in several Brazilian jour- nals of education. He is the editor of Teoria & Educação, and has recently finished writing What Produces and What Reproduces in Education, which is being published in Brazil. Carlos Alberto Torres is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles. Widely pub- lished in Spanish, Portuguese and English, he is the author of The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America (also published in Portuguese); with Daniel Morales-Goméz, The State, Corporatist Politics, and Educational Policy-making in Mexico; and, most recently, The Church, Society and Hegemony, A Critical Sociology of Religion in Latin America (translated by Richard A.Young). Cornel West is the author of Prophetic Fragments, The American Eva- sion of Philosophy and, with bell hooks, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. He is Professor of Religion and Director of the Afro- American Studies Program at Prince ton University. FOREWORD Paulo Freire Translated by Donaldo Macedo In this impressive volume, Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard have attempted to bring together a group of international scholars and educators in order to reflect upon my work as it has been taken up in various educational and polit- ical contexts in England, Africa, New Zealand, Latin America, and the United States. More than a testament to my work alone, however, this vol- ume attempts to grapple with a number of pivotal issues currently engaged by critical scholars who have set out to refine and develop a critical peda- gogy attentive to the changing face of social, cultural, gender, and global relations. These issues include, but are no means limited to, the manner in which subjectivity is constituted in language; the relationship among dis- course, social action, and historical memory; the connection between inter- pretation and historical practice; and how forms of authority may be addressed and justified in the context of feminist pedagogy and practice. In short, this volume represents a foundational inquiry into the relationship between power and pedagogy. I do not wish to direct attention to each of the chapters in turn, but rather to affirm some of the central principles of my work which are reflected therein, and in so doing attempt to clarify some issues which have been raised about my position on the politics of liberation. Over the years, educators such as Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Ira Shor, Carlos Alberto Torres, Donaldo Macedo, and bell hooks, among others, have tried to reinvent my writings and research on literacy and pedagogy so that they may be applied to North American struggles for liberation in schools, the workplace, the home, and universities and colleges. In my view,