Critical Literacy and Emancipatory Politics: the Work of Paulo Freire

This paper argues that Freire 's pedagogical ideas stand in marked reaction against a process of education characterised by prescription. In Freire 's view, such a process consolidates sharply defined power relations and therefore perpetuates oppressive social forms. It argues that contained in Freire 's pedagogy are the e lements for a model of an alternative society. In the first section, at tention is focused on Freire 's analysis of the process of ideological dominat ion as it takes place among the oppressed, with specific reference to the context which influenced the development of his pedagogical ideas. The second section provides an analytic exposition of the alternative pedagogy which Freire proposes with a view to contributing to what he calls 'cultural action for f reedom' . The third section consists of a discussion on the application of Freirean pedagogy in a post-revolutionary context. The pedagogy is here viewed as contributing to what Freire terms 'cultural revolution' . Both 'cultural action for f reedom' and "cultural revolution" constitute key concepts for the development of critical literacy. Freire 's pedagogy is here discussed for the most part with an industrially under-developed context in mind; for Freire's most significant pedagogical experiences were closely tied to these contexts. Paulo Freire is synonymous with the concept of critical literacy. Critical literacy is to be distinguished from functional or cultural literacy, the former referring to the technical process of acquiring basic reading skills necessary to follow instructions, read signs, fill in forms etc. and the latter referring to the means of gaining access to a 'standard' cultural and linguistic baggage very much on the lines advocated, in the U.S., by the likes of Hirsch and Bloom (McLaren, 1994). Critical literacy, on the other hand, refers to an emancipatory process in which one not only reads the 'word' but also the 'world' (Freire and Macedo, 1987), a process whereby a person becomes empowered to be able to unveil and decode 'the ideological dimensions of texts, institutions, social practices and cultural forms such as television and film, in order to reveal their selective interests' (McLaren, 1994). In the words of Lankshear and McLaren, this process is carried out in a context wherein the educators are striving to foster what Wright Mills calls a "sociological imagination', the means whereby we are enabled to 'perceive more clearly the relationship between what is going on in the world and what is happening to and with ourselves' (Lankshear and McLaren, 1993). It is a process therefore which ties pedagogical practices in different spheres of social life to configurations of power. Pedagogical practice becomes a political act a very important maxim in Freire's work as writer, educational philosopher and pedagogue. Of course, it has also been an important maxim throughout his recent work in educational administration and policy making. Freire carried out this work in his capacity as Education Secretary in the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party) Municipal Government in Sao Paulo (cf. Viezzer, 1990; Freire, 1991, 1993; Torres, 1993, 1994). Critical literacy is conceived of by the many critical educationists inspired by his work as a form of cultural politics. In Henry Giroux's words, it is defined 'as a form of cultural citizenship and politics that provides the conditions for subordinate groups to learn the knowledge and skills necessary for self and social empowerment' (Giroux, 1993). The reaction to Freire's advocacy of a process of education predicated on a critical/political reading of the world has been varied, ranging from accusations of being 'reformist' (La Belle, 1986) and 'populist' (Youngman, 1986) to such approving comments as those by Elias and Merriam who state that Freire's 'theory is radical in the political sense of utilising education to bring about social, political and economic