Pedagogy of the Oppressed

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.

Freire sees the human struggle for liberation as the great moral challenge of our era. The oppressed must not only win their freedom, but in doing so, overthrow the socioeconomic and ideological structures of oppression that dehumanize both parties living within it. Just as the aspirations and self-affirmation of the oppressed are denied by the oppressor, the oppressor is dehumanized because he dehumanizes others. Only when the revolutionary struggle dismantles the entire structure of oppression will the “contradiction,” as Freire terms it, of oppressor and oppressed be superseded by the humanization of all people.

“In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform. This perception . . . must become the motivating force for liberating action.”

The primary challenge of the pedagogy of the oppressed is enabling them to recognize the oppressor outside themselves and realize that the reality constraining them is not immutable, but changeable. This is not enough, however, to secure their liberation. Recognition of the fact and causes of oppression must motivate action; and that action, in turn, must be continually illuminated by reflection. This combination of critical awareness and the revolutionary action that stems from reflection Freire terms “praxis.” Praxis is the liberating tool of the oppressed. Through it, the oppressed become aware of themselves as historical beings and engage in the revolutionary struggle as fully participating Subjects.

“I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination—which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved. . . In order to achieve humanization, which presupposes the elimination of dehumanizing oppression, it is absolutely necessary to surmount the limit-situations in which people are reduced to things.”

In this quotation, Freire frames the struggle for liberation within the terms of his theory of “problem-posing” education outlined in Chapter 3. The education of the oppressed begins by identifying certain themes drawn from the experience of individuals living under conditions of oppression. These themes embody the ideas, values, hopes, and fears of people, as well as the obstacles to their freedom, and form the educational content that teacher and student investigate together.

Themes always exist in a dialectical relationship with other opposing themes; e.g., the theme of domination and the corresponding theme of liberation. Each of these limits the possibility of the other—freedom for all prevents domination by the few, and domination can only occur by denying freedom to those who are dominated.

Furthermore, themes always imply “limit-situations” that challenge people’s ability to transform a given limiting condition. The educator’s task is to present the people’s themes to them as problems. By considering themes as problems, the oppressed come to realize that obstacles to their freedom are not fixed and insurmountable, but opportunities that—through reflection and action—enable them to become more fully human.

“But almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors . . . The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men, but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. . .[T]he oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt an attitude of ‘adhesion’ to the oppressor. Under these circumstances they cannot ‘consider’ him sufficiently clearly to objectivize him—to discover him ‘outside’ themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden. But their perception of themselves as oppressed is impaired by their submersion in the reality of oppression. At this level, their perception of themselves as opposites of the oppressor does not yet signify engagement in a struggle to overcome the contradiction; the one pole aspires not to liberation, but to identification with its opposite pole.” 

Oppression produces false consciousness in subjugated men and women. Freire argues that to sustain his position of dominance, the oppressor contrives to manipulate the consciousness of the oppressed, preventing them from clearly perceiving the conditions, causes, and extent of their oppression. Subjugated to, and dependent upon, the oppressor, the oppressed internalize his image. This results in a dual consciousness and ambivalent feelings toward him. The oppressed are torn between their desire for liberation and the urge to identify with the oppressor as someone who embodies the authority and humanity they find lacking in themselves.

Once the oppressed begin to empower themselves, they are still constrained by the implicit assumptions and modes of behavior that permeate oppressive society. The oppressed are unable to think or act beyond the duality of “oppressor” and “oppressed”; for them, one either oppresses or is oppressed. Thus, they view the oppressor as a model of the humanity, freedom, and ‘success’ toward which they aspire. As Freire says, their vocation is to become more fully human, but in this stage of their struggle their image of the human is itself dehumanizing. 

“One of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings’ consciousness. Functionally, oppression is domesticating.”

Oppression hinders the historical awareness and inhibits the will of the oppressed. The oppressed are conditioned to think that the social order and their subordinate place in it are unchangeable. Treated as ‘objects’ by the oppressor, rather than as subjects possessing agency, the oppressed languish in a state of dependence and alienation, and adapt to the roles the oppressor prescribes for them. Freire terms this “submergence” in the oppressive reality. Only by making their oppression even more oppressive by critically recognizing it can they rouse themselves to struggle against it.

“The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is acquired by conquest . . . [it is] the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion.”

Freire stresses that the oppressor prescribes the behavior of the oppressed, who follow the latter’s guidelines. Subordinated by legal, political, economic, and other means, the oppressed become dependent upon the oppressor, materially and psychologically. This leads to low self-esteem and self-doubt, which are reinforced by the oppressor’s dismissal of the oppressed as good for nothing.

In this state of passive dependency, the oppressed often fear the risks involved in the struggle for liberation. Though they may recognize the injustice of their situation, they prefer the relative security of remaining docile to assuming responsibility for their liberation.

“Men and women rarely admit their fear of freedom openly, however, tending to camouflage it . . . by presenting themselves as defenders of freedom. . . But they confuse freedom with the maintenance of the status quo; so that if conscientização threatens to place that status quo in question, it thereby seems to constitute a threat to freedom itself.”

During Freire’s work with Brazilian and Chilean peasants, he often observed their resistance to commit to revolutionary action. He terms this the “fear of freedom.” Confusing freedom with the security of the status quo, the oppressed frequently mistake consciousness-raising as a threat to their apparent freedom. Freire asserts, however, that conscientização—a term meaning the development of a critical awareness of one’s social reality through reflection and action—is the only authentic means by which the oppressed can challenge the status quo and pursue their liberation from oppressive conditions.

“This climate creates in the oppressor a strongly possessive consciousness—possessive of the world and of men and woman. Apart from direct, concrete, material possession of the world and of people, the oppressor consciousness could not understand itself—could not even exist. . . The oppressor consciousness tends to transform everything surrounding it into an object of its domination.”

The oppressor mentality is materialistic and domineering; it assumes everything can be had for a price and that money is the measure of all things. The oppressor identifies “being” with “having,” and continually seeks possessions as the symbols of self-worth and status. Moreover, the oppressor assumes that “humanity” itself is a “thing” upon which he holds a unique right to the exclusion of the lower classes. In his relations with others, the oppressor always seeks to dominate, whether by paternalistic means or by outright force.

“The pedagogy of the oppressed, as a humanist and libertarian pedagogy, has two distinct stages. In the first, the oppressed unveil the world of oppression and through the praxis commit themselves to its transformation. In the second stage, in which the reality of oppression has already been transformed, this pedagogy ceases to belong to the oppressed and becomes a pedagogy of all people in the process of permanent liberation.”

For Freire, the oppressed must lead the struggle for liberation in collaboration with their educators and revolutionary leaders. His educational project for liberation addresses two historical phases in the struggle: the present situation of endemic oppression, and a later stage when oppressive conditions are being transformed. The aim of education in the first stage is to change the way the oppressed perceive the world, enabling them to reflect critically upon their concrete reality and their perception of that reality. Through this process the oppressed come to recognize the oppressor within themselves and to eject him, so as to pursue their own freedom through critical reflection and action (“praxis”).

In the second stage of education, the myths and prejudices of the old order are confronted and expelled to prevent them from contaminating the new revolutionary society, which embraces freedom for all.

“The revolutionary leaders of every epoch who have affirmed that the oppressed must accept the struggle for their liberation—an obvious point—have also thereby implicitly recognized the pedagogical aspect of this struggle. Many of these leaders, however . . . have ended up using the ‘educational’ methods employed by the oppressor. They deny pedagogical action in the liberation process, but they use propaganda to convince.”

Here, Freire acknowledges the misguided attempts of previous revolutionary leaders to win over the oppressed to their own vision of the struggle. Propaganda, slogans, directives—these are rhetorical tools of the oppressor, and they subject the oppressed to the revolutionary program by manipulating their assent to that program. Once again, this educational method treats the oppressed as objects, not subjects, in the struggle for their liberation. As such, it contradicts the very purpose and goal of the revolutionary struggle.

“In a humanizing pedagogy the method ceases to be an instrument by which the teachers (in this instance, the revolutionary leadership) can manipulate the students (in this instance, the oppressed), because it expresses the consciousness of the students themselves.”

The education of the oppressed must begin by focusing on their concrete experience and their awareness of that experience. Education, in Freire’s view, must express the students’ own consciousness in order to help them attain fuller humanity. Through dialogue, teachers and students discover reality together as well as re-create it. In doing so, they discover themselves as the re-creators of their reality and their commitment to intervene in that reality; in other words, they discover themselves as Subjects within the historical process. For Freire, this self-discovery is the crucial step toward mobilizing the oppressed to seek liberation.

“A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside of school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified.”

The conventional mode of education involves a one-way flow of information from teacher to student. In this “banking” method, a strict hierarchy prevails: authority and agency is invested in the teacher, while the students’ role is to absorb the content. The teacher, as speaking Subject, acts; the students, as silent objects, are acted upon and must relinquish any claim to their own knowledge.

This form of education subordinates students and invalidates their experience outside the classroom. The narrative method presents the subject of the lesson as an abstract, static, self-contained thing, rather than as a problem demanding the students’ engagement. Narrative teaching tends to give a fragmented view of reality, ignoring the total picture. Moreover, it alienates students since they often feel unconnected to the material being taught and estranged by the teacher’s language..

“The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world . . . The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed.”

Banking education works to adapt the student to the world and to the conditions of domination. It is a tool of the oppressor to suppress the ability of the oppressed to perceive their situation correctly and critically. The oppressor must ‘mask’ the total reality and historical contingency of the system that privileges him, in order to prevent the oppressed majority from recognizing the social structure of domination and realizing their ability to transform it.

“For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

The banking method serves to dehumanize the student. The ‘knowledge’ it delivers is (at best) a distortion and fragmentation of the truth. True knowledge arises only from the reflection and action of men and women to restore their humanity, in dialogue with each other, and through a creative relationship between themselves and the world. Praxis—critical reflection and action working together to transform the world—is a mode of knowledge. To be human is to engage in praxis; to engage in praxis is to pursue knowledge experientially in a continuing process of consideration and re-consideration.

“The teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking . . . Authentic thinking, thinking that is concerned about reality, does not take place in ivory tower isolation, but only in communication.”

Freire emphasizes the reciprocal quality of the learning experience in problem-posing education. The authenticity of the teacher’s thought is validated by the students’ own thought and experience of reality. It is not derived from her authority as a teacher. Addressing the world as something in which they are both crucially engaged, teacher and students are ‘co-investigators’ in a collaborative educational process. This process relies on genuine communication, not narration; its goal is to enable shared “acts of cognition,” not the transferal of information from teacher to student. This represents a radical shift in the aim of education that prizes the creative activity of constructing knowledge over the reception and storage of ‘pre-fabricated’ pieces of information.

“In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and woman as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people’s history as their starting point.”

As a tool of the oppressor, banking education tries to de-politicize knowledge, obscuring the political, social, and cultural conditions that influence its creation. By ignoring the social construction of knowledge and treating both the student and the object of knowledge as fixed beings, the banking method denies the formative role of history in the creation of human identity. At the same time, it works to immobilize the student from achieving political self-awareness.

For Freire, education, as a humanist endeavor, must be political. Our politics reflect our historical awareness of ourselves. The content of education, accordingly, begins with men and women’s history. In a collaborative effort with the teacher, students come to perceive and understand their historical situation and intervene in it through praxis.

“Problem-posing education, as a humanist and liberating praxis, posits as fundamental that the people subjected to domination must fight for their emancipation. To that end, it enables teachers and students to become Subjects of the educational process by overcoming authoritarianism and an alienating intellectualism; it also enables people to overcome their false perception of reality.”

In this quotation, Freire sums up the philosophy of his pedagogical method. As a “critical pedagogy,” it is concerned with the issues of social justice, inequality, and the hierarchical power relations in society. It conceives of education as explicitly political. Helping the oppressed overcome their false perception of reality, it empowers them to transform the oppressive conditions of society that contribute to human suffering and dehumanization.

“There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.” 

Freire’s philosophy of education—and embrace of the dialogical method—is based on his belief in the instrumental power of words to create and transform reality. The true word is born of dialogue, not the exercise of dominance; its origin in dialogue gives it authenticity. Those who deny others their right to speak, to participate in the naming of reality, invalidate their own language.

Freire sees dialogue as a collaborative naming (and re-naming) of the world. In dialogue, reflection and action are intimately related. As a praxis, a true word consists of both reflection and action (or, at least an obligation to act). This conception of the word as entailing reflection and action is fundamental to his educational philosophy. It enables him to avoid activism (action divorced from reflection) on the one hand, and mere verbalism (idle chatter) on the other. If we name the oppressive situation, we denounce that situation; and in denouncing it, we necessarily commit to transform it. This transformation can only be achieved through action.

“It is when the majorities are denied their right to participate in history as Subjects that they become dominated and alienated. Thus, to supersede their condition as objects by the status of Subjects—the objective of any true revolution—requires that the people act, as well as reflect, upon the reality to be transformed.”

Reducing men and women to the status of objects subservient to the purposes of the oppressor deprives them of their essential humanity. To restore that humanity, they must first discover themselves as active and responsible participants in the making of their history. The goal of revolution thus can only be achieved when the oppressed enter the historical process in the struggle to transform the real conditions of their oppression. Their revolutionary action, or praxis, requires both reflection and the informed action that stems from it. Praxis reaffirms the humanity of the oppressed, since it is an essentially human activity. Through revolutionary praxis, the oppressed realize and embrace the possibility of their freedom.

“Humans, however, because they are aware of themselves and thus of the world—because they are conscious beings—exist in a dialectical relationship between the determination of limits and their own freedom. As they separate themselves from the world, which they objectify, as they separate themselves from their own activity, as they locate the seat of decisions in themselves . . . people overcome the situations which limit them: the ‘limit-situations.’” 

Under oppressive conditions, the consciousness of men and women is submerged in the concrete reality of their exploitation. Suppressed and alienated, they feel powerless to change what they feel is an immutable, God-given, state of affairs. As human beings, though, their vocation is to exercise freedom, the essential condition of humanity. Unlike animals which cannot transcend the natural conditions that determine their existence, humans can self-consciously alter the conditions of their existence through free choice.

The oppressed need to objectify the world, i.e., develop the ability to perceive the surrounding environment and their own actions objectively. This critical perspective enables them to recognize that what they previously thought of as unchangeable—their limit-situations—are capable of being transformed through their action. No longer passive, they become active agents in the pursuit of greater freedom; their activity itself is an expression of that freedom.

“Humankind emerge from their submersion and acquire the ability to intervene in reality as it is unveiled. Intervention in reality—historical awareness itself—thus represents a step forward from emergence, and results from the conscientização of the situation. Conscientização is the deepening of the attitude of awareness characteristic of all emergence.

This quotation crystallizes the process by which the oppressed become active and responsible participants in the struggle for liberation. Conscientization—consciousness-raising—makes possible their intervention in the political, economic, and social environment of oppression. Their consciousness must be transformed before liberating action can take place. Conscientização is the means of that transformation, supplanting the false consciousness that oppression has engendered in them.

“An epoch is characterized by a complex of ideas, concepts, hopes, doubts, values, and challenges in dialectical interaction with their opposites . . . The concrete representation of many of these ideas, values, concepts, and hopes, as well as the obstacles which impede the people’s full humanization, constitute the themes of that epoch.”

In problem-posing education, the educator’s task is to discover the “generative themes” of the oppressed group and re-present those themes to them as problems. By reflecting on the contradictions that underlie their daily life within society, the oppressed begin to develop a critical awareness of themselves, of their oppressor and his forms of manipulation, and of the oppressive conditions which afflict them. From merely feeling their needs, they come to realize the causes of their needs.

Certain themes prevail in certain historical epochs, reflecting the contradictions underlying a given society. Themes are related to their opposites, e.g. domination, which implies liberation as the goal to be achieved, is the fundamental theme of our epoch for Freire. His pedagogical method enables the oppressed to discover the interrelation of their themes, so they can achieve a more comprehensive and objective grasp of the totality of their oppressive situation and their ability to transform it.

“Manipulation, sloganizing, ‘depositing,’ regimentation, and prescription cannot be components of revolutionary praxis, precisely because they are components of the praxis of domination. In order to dominate, the dominator has no choice but to deny true praxis to the people, deny them the right to say their own word and think their own thoughts.”

The tactics the oppressor uses to subjugate the oppressed are inadmissible in the people’s struggle for liberation. They are anti-dialogical, and aim to reduce the populace to the status of inert ‘objects’ controlled and occupied by their superiors.

The revolutionary struggle must begin on other grounds. Its leaders need to recognize oppressed men and women as human beings in the process of becoming Subjects, exercising their humanity through reflection and action. Through their true praxis, which is the fruit of their conscientização, the people assert their right to name the world and transform it. If their leaders were to deny the oppressed the opportunity of reflection, they would merely have the illusion of acting, since praxis necessarily combines action and reflection. This would be another form of manipulating the oppressed and would contradict the revolution’s goal of liberation.