The category of praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: meanings and implications for a libertarian education

Abstract

The essays of Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed come to life in the connection between theory and practice and they innovate by associating the concept of praxis to the field of education. In turn, education is employed as a mean to reach freedom, based on creativity, reflection, awareness, and people’s attitudes towards real life, and striving to transform it. Adding to the discussion vis-à-vis the connection between praxis and education, this theoretical and bibliographic paper intends mainly to identify and analyze the meanings assumed by the category of praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Scrutinizing Freire’s book and dialoguing with the works of Sánchez Vázquez (1977), Marx (2007), Konder (1992), among others, the predominance of the political nature in the meanings of praxis offered by Freire is made visible; this political nature of the concept enables the consciousness-raising process and guides people’s attitudes towards the real world, aiming at changing it. Praxis in Freire’s conception invokes the idea of a set of practices that focus on altering reality and on creating history. Ultimately, this study suggests that Freire, based on Vazquez (1977), crafted a notion of social and historical praxis that is supported by a tripod that includes the transformation of an unjust reality, the transformation motivated on the critical view of said reality, and also the knowledge of said nature.