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Popular education is understood to be popular, as distinct from merely populist, in the sense that it is:

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  • rooted in the real interests and struggles of ordinary people

  • overtly political and critical of the status quo

  • committed to progressive social and political change.
     

Popular education is based on a clear analysis of the nature of inequality, exploitation and oppression, and is informed by an equally clear political purpose. This has nothing to do with helping the ‘disadvantaged’ or the management of poverty; it has everything to do with the struggle for a more just and egalitarian social order.

The process of popular education has the following general characteristics:
 

 

 

http://www.rizoma-freireano.org/articles-1414/the-international-popular-education-network

 

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The aim of popular education is to promote: Political Knowledge, Dialogue and Critical Subjects whose Method of Collective Action Humanises the Educator’ an aide-memoire for:

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  • Political: popular education has a political commitment in favour of the ‘oppressed’, ‘poor’, ‘marginalised’ or ‘excluded’. All education is considered inherently political, either working to support or change the prevailing unjust social order, and popular education addresses this openly.

  • Knowledge: epistemologically, it recognises that all people have important knowledge derived from the particular experiences in which they find themselves: useful knowledge is not the exclusive preserve of academics, technicians or experts.

  • Dialogue: education should consist of dialogue between different ‘knowledges’, not simply the depositing of an expert’s knowledge into the mind of those perceived to be ignorant, what Freire (1972) calls ‘banking education’.

  • Critical: it should develop critical thinking among learners, so that people can recognise and understand the mechanisms which keep them oppressed; increasingly, it encourages creative thinking and the ability to make concrete proposals for change.

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  • Subjects: the aim is not to manipulate thoughts or create dependency on charismatic leaders but to enable people to become authentic agents or ‘subjects’ of change themselves.

  • Method: accordingly, the methodology of popular education should promote a ‘dialogue of knowledges’ (Ghiso, 1993) and encourage people to think and act for themselves. To this end popular education has developed an impressive range of ‘participative techniques’ (Bustillos & Vargas, 1993).

  • Collective: the concern is to help enable people progress collectively, not to single out individuals for special treatment. This does not mean, however, that individual needs are ignored.

  • Action: echoing Marx, the point is not just to theorise but to try and bring about social change. As such, popular education is linked to action for change, particularly in the different popular social movements all over Latin America, where ‘the movement is the school’ (Freire, 1991).

  • Humanises: some argue that the raison d’eÌ‚tre of popular education is ‘above all an ethical commitment in favour of humanisation’ (Zarco, 2001:30).

  • Educator: the role of the educator is not to provide answers but to ask questions and stimulate dialogue, debate and analysis. But popular educators also contribute to the dialogue and are not merely ‘facilitators’: in the end, though it should never be manipulative, popular education is undeniably interventionist.
     

Source article on Latin American pop ed by Liam Kane- full article is accessible

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