ParticipatoryAdultEducation

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Below is a series of invitations to dialogue. Each one of these topics tends to come up again and again when people begin discuss participatory or emancipatory adult literacy education. While they are very inter-related, they also exist as discrete themes. To contribute to these discussions, here is a suggested format.

As of this editing, most of the content has to do with the work of Paulo Freire. This is not to imply that emancipatory and/or participatory education either started with him, ended with him, or can be only understood by agreeing with what he said. It is just one way to start to build up the resources of this wiki site.

To add a new question or topic, go to the edit function and add the question/topic to the table of contents, and then add to body of the page. Then add your comment to the question or topic, marking it off by using capital letters and by making the text bold.

Within a question/theme, to add a quotation or citation from a published text begin with a single asterix (*), then type CITED QUOTE. Provide a description of the quote if necessary, and as full a citation as possible. To add your own comment to a CITED QUOTE, follow the instructions above.
This will create the following structure:

(#) QUESTION/TOPIC/THEME

  • CITED QUOTE

COMMENT:

This should allow the cited quotes to stay clean and distinct, and for comments to be organized by theme.


  1. What is the difference between participatory and emancipatory education?
  2. What are the goals of emancipatory education?
  3. Can emancipatory education happen on an individual level?
  4. What is praxis?
  5. What is conscientization?
  6. What effect does the sociopolitical context have on emancipatory education?
  7. What is the role of the teacher in emancipatory education?


1. What is the difference between participatory and emancipatory education?
  • CITED QUOTE: Literacy and the transformation of society

Freire, P. & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. New York: Bergin & Garvey
"Literacy should be viewed as 'one of the major vehicles by which ‘oppressed’ people are able to participate in the sociohistorical transformation of their society.' " (pg. 157; citing S. Walmsey)

  • CITED QUOTE: Literacy and the transformation of society

Campbell, P. (2001). Introduction. In P. Campbell and B. Burnaby (Eds.), Participatory Practices in Adult Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum
“Participatory education is a collective effort in which the participants are committed to building a just society through individual and socioeconomic transformation and ending domination through changing power relations.” (pg. 1)

COMMENT: Participatory education is often associated with the liberatory pedagogy of Paulo Freire. The two concepts have a great deal in common, and people have struggled to articulate clear differences between the two. One way to make the distinction is to note the explicitly emancipatory goals of Freire’s pedagogy. Freire believed that by becoming literate, the oppressed can realize their full humanity and liberate themselves. To achieve this transformation, learners cannot remain passive while teachers fill them up with information (what Freire called the “banking” model of education). Instead, students must actively participate in the production of knowledge. Participatory education also rejects the banking model and stresses the need for students to actively engage in the production of knowledge, but may not necessarily do so within a framework of emancipation. (Erik Jacobson)

2. What are the goals of emancipatory education?
  • CITED QUOTE: Celebrating Indigenous Knowledge and Forms and/or Getting Access

Freire, P. & Macedo, D. (1987). Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. New York: Bergin & Garvey
“The notion of emancipatory literacy suggests two dimensions of literacy. On the one hand, students have to become literate about their histories, experiences, and the culture of their immediate environments. On the other hand, they must also appropriate those codes and cultures of the dominant spheres so that they can transcend their own environments. There is often an enormous tension between these two dimensions of literacy. How can emancipatory literacy deal effectively with this tension so as not to suffocate either dimension?” (pg. 47)

COMMENT: If you look at the experience of Haiti the importance of this question becomes very clear. There is a tension in Haiti between providing literacy instruction in French (which only 8% of the population speaks) and in Kreyol (the language that every Haitian speaks). Literacy in French, as the historical and colonial language of power, creates opportunities for individuals to move up in the hierarchy. Literacy in Kreyol, the language of the masses, has the potential to change the structure of civil society. Yet Kreyol has a limited written corpus, and creating wide spread literacy in Kreyol is a project beyond the life of a single individual. How is emancipation best supported? Is it possible to promote a biliteracy in Haiti that doesn't perpetuate the power of French literacy? From another perspective, what is the status of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) literacy in adult education? Does emancipatory education concern itself with promoting the value of AAVE literacy, or with helping speakers of AAVE become biliterate? If the later is the goal, what are the best methods for acheiving it? (Erik Jacobson)

3. Can emancipatory education happen on an individual level?
  • CITED QUOTE: Emancipation takes place at the societal level

Freire, P. (1996). Education for Critical Consciousness. Myra Bergman Ramos (Trans & Ed). New York: Continuum
 "It is sufficient to know that conscientization does not take place in abstract beings in the air but I real men and women and in social structures, to understand that it cannot remain on the level of the individual." (pg. 178-179)

  • CITED QUOTE: Emancipation takes place at the societal level

Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Bergman Ramos (Trans). New York: Continuum
 “It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection; only then will it be a praxis. (pg. 52)

  • CITED QUOTE: Emancipation is not simply an intellection transformation

Mayo, P. (1999). Gramsci, Freire & Adult Education. New York: Zed Books.
“Freire also made an important point regarding the dangers of isolating educational activity from a broader range of transformative actions. He states that one should not ‘expect’ from education what it cannot do, namely ‘transform society by itself.’…If carried out in isolation, Freire’s pedagogy would only involve ‘intellectual praxis.’ This is a kind of praxis that would probably be capable of transforming people’s consciousness; but it would not enable them to engage in direct political action to change their plight.” (pg. 159-160)

COMMENT: Focusing on the social as the arena of emancipation, rather than the individual, is very important. On the one hand, it limits what can be expected from a single classroom or a single emancipatory project. One classroom that takes on racism is not going to eliminate racism, and should not be expected to. While the emancipatory project as a whole is a large one, that does not mean that every class activity has to be a dress rehearsal for storming Wall Street. One shouldn't be disappointed that changes at the personal level don't immediately make a visible impact. At the same time, the fact that emancipation does not happen at the individual level means that emancipatory action cannot remain at the individual level. There needs to be social action, not just personal reflection. (Erik Jacobson)

4. What is praxis?
5. What is conscientization?
  • CITED QUOTE: What is conscientization?

Freire, P. (1985). The Politics of Education. Donaldo Macedo (Trans). New York: Bergin & Garvey
“Conscientization refers to the process in which men, not as recipients, but as knowing subjects achieve a deepening awareness both of the sociocultural reality that shapes their lives and of their capacity to transform that reality.” (pg. 93)

COMMENT: About the language of empancipatory education in general. I don't mean this with any disrespect to those that think this theory is really great, but I wonder about the validity of a theory that discusses the methods by which common people can educate themselves in a language that only a very specialized education allows one to understand. The obscurity of his prose suggests a)Friere uses obscure language on purpose to make himself sound more profound; b) the translator just did a bad job; c) Friere, like Karl Marx, needed a good editor; d) only really deep thinkers should have access to this special knowledge. I keep thinking that Malcolm X said the same thing in his autobiography in a way that most people can understand. (Michele Craig)

COMMENT: Rather than looking at the language of a theory of emancipation (whether Marx or Freire) to test its validity, I think it is more important to see if the theory accurately describes how emancipation has or has not taken place. In other words, if it is a strategy, does accomplish what it set out to do? In Freire's case, there is no denying the dramatic increases in literacy that Freirean-directed or inspired literacy campaigns have produced in South America and Africa. Now, conscientization, that awareness of sociopolitical reality and the feeling that one has the capacity to change it, might be another matter. It is not as easily assessed as letter knowledge. In addition, definitions of social reality can differ, as can reactions to them. This is a tension within the idea of conscientization. If I am fully aware of a social injustice but do nothing about it (even though I realize I could) because it benefits me, what is my relationship to conscientization? If we suggest that the exploiters of the world need conscientization, does that mean they are unaware of their actions or that they are currently living in bad faith? Does that mean that anybody who does not agree with the emancipatory project (however defined) needs conscientization? These are difficult questions. (Erik Jacobson)


6. What effect does the sociopolitical context have on emancipatory education?
  • CITED QUOTE: The Differences in Political Realities – South America and the United States (or Canada, or other developed countries)

Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Bergman Ramos (Trans). New York: Continuum
“Since the unity of the oppressed involves solidarity among them, regardless of their exact status, this unity unquestionably requires class consciousness. However, the submersion in reality which characterizes the peasants of Latin America means that consciousness of being an oppressed class must be preceded (or at least accompanied) by achieving consciousness of being oppressed individuals (pg. 174)

COMMENT:I have often heard people suggest that while Freirean pedagogy is fine for the developing world, it is not appropriate or necessary for (so-called) developed countries (such as the United States of America). Understood as a methodology, this is undoubtedly true. The teaching methods one would use in rural Brazil cannot be imported to urban settings in the US. The education needs, resources and cultures of places vary too greatly for methods to be rotely copied from one place to another. In addition, the political needs of students vary greatly as well. Students' resources and goals shape the nature of emancipatory education at the local, national and international level. However, emancipatory pedagogy understood as an educational approach that is concerned with human liberation is certainly necessary in the (so-called) developed countries. The class consciousness required for unity is limited in the United States. When the majority of the people believe the estate tax should be repealed (because they too might be millionaires one day) and when middle-class stock holders can be concerned about how 'wage pressures' will negatively impact their stock earnings even while they are fighting to stay above water, then it is clear that class consciousness needs to be raised. (Erik Jacobson)

7. What is the role of the teacher in emancipatory education?
  • CITED QUOTE: Students as subjects, and not objects

Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Bergman Ramos (Trans). New York: Continuum
"Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever stage their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in accordance with historical conditions and at the level which the oppressed perceive reality. But to substitute monologue, slogans and communiqués for dialogue is to attempt to liberate the oppressed with the instruments of domestication. Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.” (pg. 52)

  • CITED QUOTE: Working with the oppressed

Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Bergman Ramos (Trans). New York: Continuum
“To achieve this praxis, however, it is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in their ability to reason. Whoever lacks this trust will fail to initiate (or will abandon) dialogue, reflection, and communication, and will fall into using slogans, communiqués, monologues and instructions. Superficial conversions to the cause of liberation carry this danger. Political action on the side of the oppressed must be pedagogical action in the authentic sense of the word, and, therefore, action with the oppressed.” (pg. 53)

COMMENT: For a somewhat critical, but not unempathetic evaluation of participatory literacy education, my essay, Participatory Literacy Education: A Complex Phenomenon may be of interest: http://www.nald.ca/fulltext/George/Particip/cover.htm

I argue for a fairly strong role for the teacher as one who mediates a scaffolding pedagogy at the cutting edge of the students' growth potential. This is far from top-down as it relies extensively on interactive feedback, but neither is it bottom-up where the predominant direction for the clsss comes from the students. I'm not opposed to that, neither do I see it as a central focus of adult literacy education, which I believe students identify as learning in a manner that they can assimiliate and in a manner that in some compelling way "speaks to them."

For me the question is how the participatory dynamic plays out within the scaffolding/growth nexus. (George Demetrion 1/25/05)

  • CITED QUOTE: Dewey's Rejection of an Either/Or Approach to Participatory Education

From John Dewey (1933). How We Think. Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, IL

COMMENT: The practical problem of the teacher is to preserve a balance between so little showing and telling as to fail to stimulate reflection and so much as to choke thought. Provided the student is genuinely engaged in a topic, and provided the teacher is willing to give the student a good deal of leeway as to what he assimilates and retains (not requiring rigidly that everything be grasped or reproduced) there is comparatively little danger that one who is himself enthusiastic will communicate too much concerning a topic. If a genuine community spirit pervades the group, if the atmosphere is that of free communication in a developing exchange of experiences and suggestions, it is absurd to debar the teacher from the privilege and responsibility granted to the young [in our case, the students], that of contributing his share. The only warning is that the teacher should not forestall the contributions of pupils, but should enter especially at critical junctures where the experience of pupils is too limited to supply just the materials needed” (p. 334). (George Demetrion - 2/26/05)

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