Freirean-Based Critical Pedagogy: The Challenges of Limit-Situations and Critical Transitivity

摘要

For many, Paulo Freire is alluring, demanding and difficult. Yet, for others, Freire is maddening. He is certainly not without his critics. Critics included, few would doubt that Freire’s work is indispensable to an understanding of critical pedagogy. Though not the first or the last, Freire links together our existential situations in life with conditions of consciousness and provides a possible explanation for how both become what they are—education. This linkage is, as this article argues, necessary for creating and enacting a critical pedagogy of one’s own. The purpose of this article, then, is to provide a conceptual framework to help others think through an understanding and enacting of a Freirean-based critical pedagogy. The framework as we conceive of it is an axis-like framework mined from a few of Freire’s foundational texts and is comprised of two poles—limit-situations, critical transitivity—and is connected by the axis, or the conduit, of education.