Re-reading the world: Critical pedagogy as a tool of transitional justice

Abstract

Paulo Freire (1921–77) was undoubtedly one of the most influential pedagogical theorists of the twentieth century, inaugurating an entirely new direction for education worldwide. He also served as a special consultant for the World Council of Churches, where he championed democracy and the rights of marginalised communities throughout Latin America. Most importantly, after the end of authoritarian rule in Brazil, he returned to the country and participated in its transitional justice (TJ) process as the Secretary of Education in São Paolo. Given these strong synergies between his critical approaches to This paper thus seeks to explain the causes of this research gap using bibliometrics. education and the aims of TJ, it comes as a surprise that thus far there have been no attempts to evaluate the potential of Freirean pedagogy within a transitional context. It will also provide a preliminary analysis of the applicability of Freirean methods to TJ based on an existing account of a literacy class in El Salvador. Its findings are that the lack of attention for Paulo Freire was attributable to the unwillingness of many TJ scholars to go beyond the established “toolkit” and the dominance of English as a language of publication in the field (Freire wrote exclusively in Portuguese, although many of his works have been translated into English). It also found that Freirean pedagogical methods can contribute to TJ process through its use of generative themes which commemorate past atrocities at a grassroots community level and its open-ended curriculum which encourages learners to critically examine their current situation and formulate plans for future actions.