Freirean-Based Critical Pedagogy: The Challenges of Limit-Situations and Critical Transitivity
- 1 University of South Dakota, Vermillion, USA
- 2 University of South Dakota, Vermillion, USA
Abstract
For many, Paulo Freire is alluring, demanding and difficult. Yet, for others, Freire is maddening. He is certainly not without his critics. Critics included, few would doubt that Freire’s work is indispensable to an understanding of critical pedagogy. Though not the first or the last, Freire links together our existential situations in life with conditions of consciousness and provides a possible explanation for how both become what they are—education. This linkage is, as this article argues, necessary for creating and enacting a critical pedagogy of one’s own. The purpose of this article, then, is to provide a conceptual framework to help others think through an understanding and enacting of a Freirean-based critical pedagogy. The framework as we conceive of it is an axis-like framework mined from a few of Freire’s foundational texts and is comprised of two poles—limit-situations, critical transitivity—and is connected by the axis, or the conduit, of education.
- Adkins, A. (2006). Not to Be Taken Lightly: Education in Moral and Sacred Terms. Journal of Thought, 41, 23-27.
- Avoseh, M. B. M. (2009). Paulo Freire’s Humanism and the Challenges of 21st Century Adult Education (pp. 124-132). Rocznik Andragogiczny (Andragogical Yearbook, Poland).
- Boyles, D. R. (1998). American Education and Corporations: The Free Market Goes to School. New York: Garland Publishing.
- Brookfield, S. (2005). The Power of Critical Theory. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Carrillo, A. T. (2007). Paulo Freire and educatión popular. Adult Education and Development, 69, 27-50.
- Delpit, L. (1996). Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York, NY: New Press.
- Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering? Working through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 297-324.
- Freire, P. (1997). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Continuum.
- Freire, P. (1997b). Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Continuum.
- Freire, P. (2002). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
- Gore, J. (1992). What We Can Do for You! What Can “We” Do for “You”? Struggling over Empowerment in Critical and Feminist Pedagogy. In C. Luke, & J. Gore (Eds.), Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy (pp. 54-73). New York: Routledge.
- Lather, P. (2001). Ten Years Later, yet Again: Critical Pedagogy and Its Complicities. In K. Weiler (Ed.), Feminist Engagements: Reading, Resisting, and Revisioning Male Theorists in Education and Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge.
- McLaren, P. (1998). Life in Schools (3rd ed.). New York: Longman.
- Palmer, P. (1998). The Courage to Teach. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
- Passmore, J. (2012). The Concept of Teaching. In S. Cahn (Ed.), Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education (2nd ed., pp. 362-370). New York: Oxford University Press.
- Shudak, N. J. (2013). The Need for Philosophical Frameworks in Teacher Education. In S. Goering, N. J. Shudak, & T. E. Wartenberg (Eds.), Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers (pp. 21-33). New York: Routledge.
- Shudak, N. J. (2014). The Re-Emergence of Critical Pedagogy: A Three-Dimensional Framework for Teacher Education in the Age of Teacher Effectiveness. Creative Education, 5, 989-999. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2014.511113