This website, dedicated to Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1921-1997), consists of a collection of reviews of his books and links to other pages on Freire. The books are listed in chronological order. When the book has been translated into English, the first date refers to the original publication.
The website was created by Daniel Schugurensky, Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT).
Review by Jennifer Maurice (OISE/UT)
In Critical
Education in the New Information Age Manuel Castells, Ramón Flecha, Paulo
Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Donald Macedo, Peter McLaren and Paul Willis come
together to explore the contending and conflicting discourses of educational and
social reform in the new information age. Throughout the book the authors speak
to the importance of new languages of criticism and interpretation, and a
revolutionary praxis that is committed to emancipation and social justice.
In
the introduction, Peter McLaren discusses the growing inequality and poverty
that have resulted from neoliberal economic policy. He discusses the pan-national
structures of production and distribution and communication technologies that
have accelerated capitalism by enabling the instant worldwide financial
transactions (Castels, et al, 1999, 3). Refuting Fukyama’s assertions to the
contrary, McLaren insists that class inequalities in the West not only exist,
but are growing (Ibid, 6). In the face of these disparities McLaren warns
against an identity politics that pits groups against one another in a
never-ending litany of competing claims of oppression. Rather he argues for the
need to move beyond celebrating pluralism to an understanding of how discursive
constructions of race and ethnicity are linked to economic exploitation (Ibid,
30).
Manuel Castells, in “Flows, Networks, Identities: A Critical Theory of the Informational Society" attempts to incorporate the social and economic impacts of new technologies into a broader system of social interaction. He describes the current information society as a society of flows, in which physically disjointed positions held by social actors are exchanged in purposeful, repetitive, programmable sequences (Castells et al, 1999, 57). The interactive relationship between technology and society is important, he argues because:
The power of
organizations and individuals therefore depends both on their positioning with
respect to these sources of knowledge and on their capacity to process such
knowledge (Ibid, 60).
In
“New Educational Inequalities,” Ramón Flecha argues that “education and
social failure is the failure of an educational system and a society that can
neither recognize nor make use of the cultural richness of different groups and
individuals” (Castells et al, 78). The following chapter by Paulo Freire
offers some important reflection on education and community involvement. Freire
argues that the impossibility of being neutral in the world necessitates that we
as educators position ourselves, and incorporate our educational practice in a
way that is coherent with our political options. Progressive educators, he
insists, must opt for development as opposed to educational packages, which he
has also referred to in previous work as “banking education” (Kane, 2001,
38). In Freire’s view, the democratization of power plays a fundamental role
in facilitating community involvement in education. In conclusion, Freire
suggests that community involvement in the school should not be seen as a justification for states to escape the responsibility of
providing quality education. Rather, “the idea is to privatize education but
have the state finance it” (Castells
et al, 1999, 91).
In
“Border Youth, Difference, and Postmodern Education,” Henry Giroux outlines
the challenges for educators in understanding conditions of identity formation
within electronically mediated cultures, and how they are producing a new
generation of youth that exist between the borders of a modernist and a
postmodern world. Giroux rejects the essentialist tendency of many intellectuals
on the left who reject postmodernism as a style of cultural criticism and
knowledge production, and suggests that postmodern discourses have an important
role to play in understanding the proliferation of forms of diversity that
contemporary youth experience (Ibid, 95).
In
“Our Common Culture: a Poisonous Pedagogy”, Donaldo Macedo highlights some
of the failures of traditional educational curriculum using the example of E.D.
Hirsch’s Dictionary of Cultural
Literacy: What All Americans Need to Know. He argues that through the
selective omission of cultural facts, this work is part of the ongoing
“poisonous pedagogy” designed in large part to instill obedience as a
primary value in the education system (Castells et al, 1999, 118). Using
Freirian techniques he counterposes Hirsch’s account of American history with
another piece, “What every American needs to know but is prevented from
knowing”.
In
the final chapter, “Labor Power, Culture and the Cultural Commodity” Paul
Willis
The
book provides a strong analysis of some key issues for popular educators in the
information age. The chapters build on each other, drawing out key debates
around postmodernism and identity politics, challenging the reader to consider
her understanding of these issues and to develop an integrated analysis drawing
from diverse schools of thought. Giroux’s discussion of postmodernism and
agency may be refreshing for the reader who has become disillusioned by the
debates of postmodern cultural criticism. “Instead of claiming that
postmodernism’s critique of the essentialist subject denies a theory of
subjectivity”, he argues, “it seems more productive to examine how its
claims about the contingent character of identity, constructed in a multiplicity
of social relations and discourses, redefines the notion of agency” (Castells
et al, 1999, 97).
Castells,
by exposing the structural power held by technocrats sheds new light on the
politics of marginalization and oppression, offering new strategies for
educators wishing to address these. The increasing speed and flexibility of
production and communications processes have fundamentally changed social and
economic relations. A theory of the information society, Castells insists, must
place the world’s new economic interdependence at its heart if it hopes to
maintain relevance for the purpose of understanding the new social structure of
our societies (Ibid, 44). As educators, our ability to understand this
increasing interconnectedness and to adapt to constantly shifting power
relations will play an important role in our ability to work toward individual
and community empowerment.
The
discussions around equality, difference and pedagogy (critical and contraband)
provide some important insight for educators working to bring together class and
identity issues in their struggle for social justice. McLaren, for example,
calls for a contraband pedagogy that builds upon class solidarity while at the
same time forging alliances across race and gender affiliations (Castells et al,
1999, 32). Similarly Flecha insists that attempts to highlight diversity in the
classroom cannot replace the large goal of equality. In order to achieve
equality he suggests, communication between education and cultural workers with
other social movements and sectors of society who are working against
corporatism in schools is essential. In addition Flecha’s support of
Freire’s vision of utopia offers a message of hope to educators who continue
to believe in and work for change. He emphasizes the necessity of imagination,
in keeping alive the “utopian spark that today’s leading social theorists (Habermas,
1988, Giddens, 1990) consider essential in all Progressive analysis” (Ibid,
78).
Specific
proposals provide like Macedo’s to awaken popular memory through the
construction of museums of slavery, a museum of the quasi-genocide of American
Indians, and a Vietnam museum alongside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not only
validates popular educators working to challenge dominant histories and
ideologies, but also offer a powerful strategy for organizing. Freire’s call
to increase community involvement in the school while maintaining state funding
is equally powerful (Castells et al, 1999, 91), and opens up an interesting
discussion between those who would work with schools and those who would prefer
to see popular education remain in the realm of community organizing
initiatives. The proposal is a profoundly political one too, demanding that the
state take concrete steps to ensure universal access to education while at the
same time critically analyzing educational practice and the fundamental
assumptions of the curriculum.
One
shortcoming of the book is that although the different chapters cover similar
themes the concluding chapter leaves the reader rather abruptly. McLaren’s
introduction provides an outline, drawing out key issues and debates but
Willis’s final chapter fails to refer back to these. Although proposals for
action are suggested throughout, bringing them back together as complimentary
pieces in a common struggle could have left the reader with a greater sense of
empowerment and a clearer strategy for action.
References
Castells, Manuel; Flecha, Ramón;
Freire, Paulo; Giroux, Henry A.; Macedo, Donaldo; and
Willis, Paul, Introduction by Peter McLaren. 1999. Critical Education in the New
Information Age. Maryland and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Hirsch, E. D., Jr., F. J. Kett,
and J. Tuefil. 1988. Dictionary of
Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Kane, Liam (2001). Popular
Education and Social Change in Latin America. London:
Latin American Bureau.
To cite this review:
Maurice, Jennifer (2004). Review of Critical Education in the New Information Age, by Manuel Castells, Ramón Flecha, Paulo Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, and Paul Willis (1999), In D. Schugurensky (Ed), Reviews of Paulo Freire's Books. Available at Internet URL: <http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/freire/jm.html> (Access date).