Paulo Freire and the Politics of Education: A response to Neumann

Jacob Neumann provides a thoughtful reading of Paulo Freire in the 21^st century: Education, dialogue, and transformation. His comments on the importance of contextualising Freire’s work and the value of openness in engaging Freirean ideas are insightful and helpful. His use of the term ‘apolitical’ is, however, rather more problematic. Drawing on points made in Paulo Freire in the 21^st century, and with links to Freire’s wider philosophy and pedagogy, this article argues that education from a Freirean perspective is always political.     

Freire and dialogical pedagogy: a means for interrogating opportunities and challenges in Australian postgraduate supervision

Discussions between new postgraduate students and potential supervisors prior to the formalisation of supervisor–student partnerships serve several useful purposes. One purpose is to explore the expectations that each partner has of the other and of themselves and the anticipated nature of the partnership. This article employs Freire’s perspective on dialogical pedagogy as a framework to identify and interrogate opportunities and challenges in postgraduate supervision. Theorising and clarifying the postgraduate supervisory process in these terms at the outset of candidature and at strategic points along the way can save time and effort that might otherwise be devoted to misunderstandings and less than optimum progress. It also has implications for lifelong education for both supervisors and students that can be realised beyond the period of candidature and the substantive and methodological gains normally associated with successful completion of a thesis.     

Paulo Freire and the Concept of Education

In this article, I argue that Paulo Freire’s liberatory conception of education is interesting, challenging, even transforming because central to it are important aspects of education which other philosophers marginalise. I also argue that Freire’s critics are right when they claim that he paid insufficient attention to another important aspect of education. Finally, I argue for a conception of education which takes account of the strengths and at the same time overcomes the limitations of Freire’s liberatory conception.     

Paulo Freire’s critical and dialogic pedagogy and its implications for the Bahraini educational context

Abstract

This paper is a conceptual analysis in methodology. The purpose it fulfils is that of analysing the critical and dialogic pedagogy of Paulo Freire, to arrive at implications of Freire’s philosophy and approach for the current educational context of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Bahraini context is currently one of major economic, social, and educational reforms. Despite several reform initiatives, however, schools in Bahrain are still not advancing as they should be and deficiencies continue to exist in students’ development of higher-order thinking skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and analysis. Among the implications made by this study are ones related to: teaching and learning practices within a classroom, cultivation of 21st Century skills, curriculum development and planning, and the role played by the teacher. The paper ends with a number of significant recommendations for teachers and policy-makers, which can enhance education in Bahrain and help it progress faster. These recommendations can also prove to be useful to other parallel contexts regionally and internationally.     

Education for all in India: A second look

In this paper, the author has attempted to analyze and assess the progress of education for all (EFA) in India from 1985/1986 to 2005/2006. A similar analysis by the same author on this subject, for the period 1950–1986, was published in this journal in 1990. During that period of 35 years the development of EFA was apparently impressive, but glaring disparities in schooling facilities based on rural–urban habitation, region, caste and gender were observed. About half of all the rural schools lacked physical facilities and suffered from shortage of teachers. While enrollment had apparently increased, three‐fourths of enrolled children left school without completing elementary education. The progress of literacy was also not satisfactory with the literacy rate having increased marginally from 16% in 1951 to an estimated 38% in 1986. The literacy rates also exhibited disparities based on gender, caste, region and rural–urban location. After launching of the National Policy on Education 1986, the Government of India has made concerted efforts to achieve the goal of EFA by launching several new schemes, including expansion of non‐formal education for out‐of‐school children, improvement of physical facilities in schools, implementation of a micro‐planning strategy, the launch of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and the passage of a Bill in Parliament to make elementary education a ‘fundamental right’ of every child. The problem of illiteracy was attacked by launching an ambitious new programme called the National Literacy Mission. However, recently published reports show that there are about 59 million out‐of‐school children; enrollment of girls is low; the dropout rate up to Class VIII is still high; school‐age children work for wages; rural children have no easy access to schools; many schools still lack physical facilities; and there is a shortage of teachers and headmasters. The author feels that India must revise its target date for achieving the goal of EFA at least once again and suggests that the Government should carefully monitor the implementation of policies, and at the same time, enhance expenditure on education from the present 3.5% to 6% of the GNP as early as possible, so as to deal with the situation more effectively.     

A ratchetdemic reality pedagogy and/as cultural freedom in urban education

Abstract

This article explores the dynamic between Black youth and their teachers through an exploration of an approach to teaching and learning embedded in the complex cultural knowledge(s) of this population. It interrogates the concepts of ratchedemics and reality pedagogy as both philosophy and practice for moving past the framing of particular populations as dystopian and non-academic in the pursuit of the mirage of urban educational utopia.     

Values Education: a fresh look at procedural neutrality

The need for education in moral values is increasingly being recognised today, but how is it to be conducted in schools? In particular we consider the appropriateness or otherwise of a teacher assuming the role of a neutral chairperson in discussion.

Advocacy of such a stance is especially associated with Lawrence Stenhouse who saw neutrality as a procedural device in order to empower students’ own involvement. We point out many of the insights of Stenhouse's approach, but also some of its disadvantages which subtly encourage a popularist form of relativism.

We suggest the substitution of procedural neutrality with a different approach, that of critical affirmation. Here the teacher advocates a stance alongside everyone else. This, however, is done in a way that affirms pupils, and their right to personal views, whilst subjecting all views, including the teacher's own, to a close scrutiny, especially regarding implications for the views of others.     

Progress at school: pedagogy and the care for knowledge

The importance of care for learners is recognised as fundamental of teaching: it is argued that teaching equally requires a care for knowledge. Within a realist theory, to care for knowledge, moreover, must involve taking into account its relationship to the real world. The implications of this ontological consideration are worked out with particular reference to Bourdieu's theory that social reproduction is effected in educational contexts where the arbitrary knowledge of the school is experienced, particularly by working-class students, as symbolic violence. The “universal pedagogy” advocated by Bourdieu may need, in fact, to be based on a scientific realism in which the definitive knowledge of the school is regarded not as arbitrary but as necessary. The case for a realist approach, reflecting the different classed, gendered, and cultural origins of students, is made in the context of a secondary school science lesson observed by the New Zealand longitudinal Progress at School project.     

Initial Teacher Education: the pedagogy is the message

This paper addresses the need to increase the coherence between educational theory and pedagogical practices at the level of initial, or preservice, teacher education. It provides a case study of pedagogical practices within the context of a third‐year unit/subject on the psychology of teaching and learning in a four‐year Bachelor‐of‐Education course. These practices were developed and implemented within the framework of a constructivist view of teaching and learning, a framework which was itself a central component of the theory base of the unit. The case study includes student responses to these practices.     

A look at the single parent family: Implications for the school psychologist

The purpose of this article is to: (a) review briefly the efects on parents and children of living in a single parent family, and (b) to suggest ways in which a school psychologist can aid schools and single parent families in dealing more effectively with this type of structure. School-based interventions for children and parents are presented. These include achievement and behavioral assessment, evaluation of a child's support systems, counseling groups, bibliotherapy, parent education classes, in-service training for teachers, and referrals to community agencies. Changes in administrative policies to meet the needs of single parent families are suggested.