Adult learning and education in diverse communities: cultural invasion or dialogical action for liberation? Revisiting Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Abstract

At different scales and involving various dimensions, adult learning and education take place in diverse communities. Cultural, linguistic, religious, gender, ethnical, class and economic differences, among many others, may be sources of discrimination or of democratic dialogue and conviviality in political and social terms, also including adult learning and education environments. Based on a Freirean perspective, and especially on his major work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a critical analysis of adult learning and education policies and practices as “cultural invasion” for discrimination or as “dialogical action” for liberation is presented. Observing global and local policies based on rational-instrumental conceptions of adult learning which stress in a hyperbolic manner the promotion of individual skills as the main solution for economic competitiveness – which may be considered as a sort of oppressive pedagogism –, possible impacts on communities and societies will be discussed in terms of democracy and active citizenship, solidarity and cooperation, the process of humanization of human beings and their capacity to live together in diverse communities.