Critical consciousness,
conscientization, or
conscientização (Portuguese), is a popular education and social concept developed by renowned Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist
Paulo FreirePaulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.- Biography:...
which focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political contradictions. Critical consciousness also includes taking action against the oppressive elements in one's life that are illuminated by that understanding.
Coinage
The
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
term "conscientization" is a translation of the
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
term
conscientização, which is also translated as "
consciousness raisingConsciousness raising is a form of political activism, pioneered by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group of people on some cause or condition...
" and "
critical consciousnessCritical consciousness, conscientization, or conscientização , is a popular education and social concept developed by renowned Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire which focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of...
". The term was coined by
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
ian educator, activist, and theorist
Paulo FreirePaulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.- Biography:...
in his 1970 work
Pedagogy of the OppressedPedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of educator Paulo Freire's works. It was first published in Portuguese in 1968 as Pedagogia do oprimido and the first English translation was published in 1970...
. Freire was teaching the poor and illiterate members of Brazilian society to read at a time when literacy was a requirement for
suffrageSuffrage is the civil right to vote, or the exercise of that right. It is also called political franchise or simply the franchise. Suffrage may apply to elections, but also extends to initiatives and referendums...
and dictators ruled many
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
n countries.
Overview
Critical consciousness proceeds through the identification of "generative themes", which Freire identifies as "iconic representations that have a powerful emotional impact in the daily lives of learners." In this way, individual consciousness helps end the "
culture of silenceThe expression conspiracy of silence, or culture of silence, relates to a condition or matter which is known to exist, but by tacit communal unspoken consensus is not talked about or acknowledged...
" in which the socially dispossessed internalize the negative images of themselves created and propagated by the oppressor in situations of extreme poverty. Liberating learners from this mimicry of the powerful, and the fratricidal violence that results therefrom is a major goal of critical consciousness. Critical consciousness is a fundamental aspect of Freire's concept of
popular educationPopular education is at the crossroads between politics and pedagogy, and strongly relies on the democratic ideal of the Enlightenment, which considered public education as a main tool of individual and collective emancipation, and thus the necessary conditions of autonomy, in accordance to...
.
Arlene GoldbardArlene Goldbard is a writer, social activist and consultant whose focus is the intersection of culture, politics, and spirituality. She is best known as an advocate for cultural democracy and a creator of cultural critique and new cultural policy proposals....
, an author on the subject of community cultural development finds the concept of conscientization to be a foundation of community cultural development. From the glossary of Goldbard's 2006 book
New Creative Community.- New Village Press :New Village Press is a not-for-profit book publisher based in Oakland, CA. It is a national publishing project of Architects/ Designers/ Planners for Social Responsibility ADPSR, an educational non-profit organization founded in 1982...
: "Conscientization is an ongoing process by which a learner moves toward critical consciousness. This process is the heart of liberatory education. It differs from "consciousness raising" in that the latter may involve transmission of preselected knowledge. Conscientization means breaking through prevailing mythologies to reach new levels of awareness—in particular, awareness of
oppressionSocial oppression has in recent times been an epiphenomenon of various types of social dysfunction, whereby discrimination against an identified group is stimulated, encouraged and reinforced by way of promoting antagonism towards the Other...
, being an "object" of others’ will rather than a self-determining "subject." The process of conscientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world."
History of Application
The ancient
GreeksThe Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in diaspora communities around the world....
first identified the essence of critical consciousness when philosophers encouraged their students to develop an "impulse and willingness to stand back from humanity and nature... [and] to make them objects of thought and criticism, and to search for their meaning and significance. In his books
Pedagogy of the Oppressed and
Education for Critical Consciousness, Freire explains critical consciousness as a sociopolitical educative tool that engages learners in questioning the nature of their historical and social situation, which Freire addressed as "reading the world". The goal of critical consciousness, according to Freire, should be acting as subjects in the creation of democratic society. In
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
, Freire implies
intergenerational equityIntergenerational equity, in the sociological and psychological context, is the concept or idea of fairness or justice in relationships between children, youth, adults and seniors, particularly in terms of treatment and interactions. It has been studied in environmental and sociological settings...
between students and teachers in which both learn, both question, both reflect and both participate in meaning-making. Using this idea, and describing current instructional methods as homogenization and
lockstepLockstep systems are redundant computing systems that run the same set of operations at the same time in parallel. The output from lockstep operations can be compared to determine if there has been a fault....
standardization, alternative approaches are proposed, such as the Sudbury model of democratic education schools, an alternative approach in which children, by enjoying personal freedom thus encouraged to exercise personal responsibility for their actions, learn at their own pace rather than following a previously imposed chronologically-based curriculum. In a similar form students learn all the subjects, techniques and skills in these schools. The staff are minor actors, the "teacher" is an adviser and helps just when asked. Sudbury model of democratic education schools maintain that values,
social justiceSocial justice is a notion used to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution, policies aimed toward achieving that which developmental economists refer to as equality of opportunity and...
, critical consciousness, intergenerational equity, and political consciousness included, must be
learned through experienceExperiential Learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A. Kolb helped to popularize the idea of experiential learning drawing heavily on the work of John Dewey and...
, as Aristotle said: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."
Picking up on Freire's definition of critical consciousness,
Joe L. KincheloeJoe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He died of coronary artery disease on December 19, 2008 in Kingston, Jamaica...
has expanded the definition of the concept in his work on postformalism. In Kincheloe's formulation postformalism connects cognition to critical theoretical questions of power and social justice. In this context Kincheloe constructs a critical theory of cognition that explores questions of meaning, emancipation vis-a-vis ideological inscription, and a particular focus on the socio-political construction of the self. With these concerns in mind Kincheloe's postformal critical consciousness engages questions of purpose, issues of human dignity, freedom, authority, reconceptualized notions of reason, intellectual quality, and social responsibility. Postformal critical consciousness stimulates a conversation between critical pedagogy and a wide range of social, cultural, political economic, psychological, and philosophical concerns. Kincheloe employs this "multilogical conversation" to shape new modes of self-awareness, more effective forms of social, political, and pedagogical action, and an elastic model of an evolving critical consciousness (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1993; Kincheloe, 1999; Thomas and Kincheloe, 2006).
Freire's development of critical consciousness has been expanded upon in several academic disciplines and common applications Public health community collaborations focused on HIV prevention for women, the role of critical consciousness in adult education, and the effect of peer pressure on cigarette smokers Freire's notion of critical consciousness is, in part, a type of
political consciousnessFollowing the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx outlined the workings of a political consciousness.-The politics of consciousness:...
.
See also
- Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping students achieve critical consciousness. Critical pedagogue Ira Shor defines critical...
- Identity politics
Identity politics refers to political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of social minorities, or self-identified social interest groups. Not all members of any given group are necessarily involved in identity politics....
- Popular education
Popular education is at the crossroads between politics and pedagogy, and strongly relies on the democratic ideal of the Enlightenment, which considered public education as a main tool of individual and collective emancipation, and thus the necessary conditions of autonomy, in accordance to...
- Teaching for social justice
"Teaching for Social Justice" is the name of a controversial educational philosophy that is currently popular within teaching-credential programs...
- Adult literacy
- Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. This often happens in the workplace, through 'extension' or 'continuing education' courses at secondary schools, at a college or university. Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning...
- Praxis
Praxis may refer to:In education:* Praxis test, a teacher certification exam* Praxis School, a school of Marxist philosophyIn entertainment:* Praxis , a Bill Laswell musical project...
- Praxis intervention
Praxis Intervention is a kind of Participatory Action Research, with a difference. Participatory Action Research and its kinds emphasize on the collective modification of the external world. The Praxis Intervention, on the other hand emphasizes working on the Praxis potential of its participants...
- Liberation psychology
Liberation Social Psychology has developed amongst a body of psychologists in Latin America since the 1980s...
Relevant reading
Paulo Freire
- "Educacao como pratica da liberdade, Paz e Terra" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) (1967) translation by Myra Bergman Ramos published as "Education and the Practice of Freedom" in Education for Critical Consciousness, Seabury, 1973.
- "Extension o comunicacion?", Institute for Agricultural Reform (Santiago) (1969) translation by Louise Bigwood and Margaret Marshall published as "Extension or Communication," in Education for Critical Consciousness, Seabury, 1973.
- "Education for Critical Consciousness" (includes "Education as the Practice of Freedom" and "Extension or Communication"), Seabury, 1973, published in England as Education, the Practice of Freedom, Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1976.
- Thomas, P. and J. Kincheloe "Reading, Writing, and Thinking: The Postformal Basics." Rotterdam, Sense Publishers, 2006.
- Kincheloe, J. and S. Steinberg "A Tentative Description of Post-formal Thinking: The Critical Confrontation with Cognitive Theory." Harvard Educational Review, 63 2, (Fall 1993), pp. 296-320.
- Kincheloe, J. "Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind: Grounding the Post-formal Critique of Educational Psychology," in J. Kincheloe, S. Steinberg, and P. Hinchey, "The Postformal Reader: Cognition and Education." NY: Falmer, 1999.