Reinventing Freirean Pedagogy to Construct Citizenship Education Within Environmental and Social Justice Models: A Comparative Study in the Americas

• In Event: Education for Democracy in the Age of Neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper will focus on what emerged as the two most important characteristics of ecopedagogy as an element of citizenship education which was the reinventing of Freirean Pedagogy from research conducted in Argentina, Brazil, and Appalachia (U.S). First, the need for a Freirean pedagogy of conscious raising (conscientização) was stressed either directly or indirectly to help answer the following questions: 1) How and what socio-environmental issues are being taught?; 2) What issues are not being taught, and 3) What are the politics behind why they are not being taught? Theoretical framing of the contested terrain of globalizations was also found to be essential for these reinventions- allowing for critical and dialectical learning to take place for the local and global.

Author

• Greg William Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University