Paulo Freire in China: the opportunities and challenges as alternatives to the current neoliberal globalization

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Since the publication of 《Pedagogy of the Oppressed》， Freirean Pedagogy has spread to seven continents and Paulo Freire became the most prominent educator in the half of twentieth century.. However, the contribution of Freire's educational thoughts is de-emphasized in East Asia, especially in China where it is deeply influenced by Confucianism and in favor of teacher’s authority. This panel constitutes four case studies, located in university, vocational school, adult education to female workers and utopia experiments to explore the opportunities and challenges of implementation of Freirean pedagogy in the context of China, also examining the possibilities of alternatives to the current neoliberal globalization.
The first case study is towards “drifters” female workers, an adult education project called “Writing Mothers”, which is an ongoing collaborative writing project initiated by the author in July , 2017. After producing the first two books, the author decided to put together a new compilation focusing on women from rural backgrounds. The product of those efforts is the fifth book in the WM series, “Kindemic: Words and Worlds of Drifting Female Workers,” which centers on the vicissitudes of this vulnerable group and their families amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Writing Mothers, aims to apply what Freire names conscientization by providing writing and drawing courses to the group. Generative themes is the starting point, which follows conscientization, achieved by posing contradictions on female drifters coming from situating their experiences in historical and political circumstances. Then comes the acquisition of critical thinking, enabling them to re-think the origins and sources of their experiences. By implementing the Writing Mothers project, this project contributes to discuss the application of Freirean pedagogy in the context of China, especially to the underrepresented groups who are experiencing a culture of silence. Drifters of female workers, who experience a more layer of oppression from the perspective of feminism.
The second case study comes from Higher Vocational School. Influenced by neoliberal globalization, students are labeled as “losers” or “bad” students in higher vocational education (HVE) in China. After they graduate from school and enter the marketplace, their choices for jobs are limited to low end work and are denigrated by the society because of meager salary and lower social class. However, they regard this result or status quo as their destiny or fate instead of socioeconomic situations and structural problems. Thus, the author decides to open a course called “critical reading and writing” for 40 students which lasts 4 months. The course adopts the methodology of participatory action research to lead them to think and analyze the exploitation imposed on them, then guiding them to think what they can do to react against the system. In this process, the author begins with generative themes, guiding them to critical thinking and analysis, then decoding the transcript. The method is also combined with interviews and dialogues. By this research, the author aims to figure out to what extent teachers can practice Freirean Pedagogy in the context of China and conclude whether Freirean Pedagogy can be an alternative to achieve social justice.
The third case study comes from university. As a young scholar working in the college of education in a Chinese university for about two years, the author recognized the banking method of education is one of the, if not the most, popular teaching methods .This situation becomes worse on account of Covid-19. When observing this phenomenon, the author always feels that people are confined with something that is ambiguously hidden in practice. At the same time, a series of questions usually come up to my mind as follows: What exactly are the practical restrictions? Why do people obtain contradictions in their thoughts and actions? What prevents them from reforming their classroom practices when they are not satisfied? Can dialogue method and conscientization, as Freire advocates, be used to make some difference in class, especially for the theoretical courses? As an approach which emphasizes illustrating and analyzing personal experience, autoethnography could be able to advance sociological understanding of different topics more specifically. Therefore, in this paper, the author intends to apply autoethnography to disclose some of these opacity and ambiguity through deep reflection of my teaching and working experience, especially in accordance with my exploration of Freire’s theory in teaching practice.
The last case study comes from an utopian experiment, which argues Freirean pedagogy as a real utopian pedagogy combined with theoretical analysis and empirical research. In this paper, the author adopts what Karl Mannheim’s (2013) definition of utopia, that is, “A state of mind is utopian when it is incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs. However, only those orientations transcending reality will be referred to by us as utopian which, when they pass over into conduct, tend to shatter, either partially or wholly, the order of things prevailing at the time” Education can be as reproduction to sustain the current oppression or liberation to transform the oppression?For Freire, he thinks that education plays a role to transform the world and achieve humanization.The most obvious word that links Freire to utopia is untested feasibility. Another two worlds link Freire to Freire, that is, denunciation and annunciation. In 《Pedagogy of Hope》, he writes that “There is no authentic utopia apart from the tension between the denunciation of a present becoming more and more intolerable, and the “annunciation,” announcement, of a future to be created, built-politically, esthetically, and ethically-by us women and men.” Based on Freire’s critical pedagogy, the author locates an utopia experiment to examine the importance of education in the real utopia case and the application of critical pedagogy in China. Located in Hebei Province, Zhou Jia Zhuang village will be the chosen site for this research. This research will be conducted via interview, file analysis and participatory action research for a month to testify the feasibility of its application to the specific contexts.

Sub Unit

• East Asia SIG

Chair

• Li Yan, University of California Los Angeles

Individual Presentations

• Freire and Utopian Pedagogy: an alternative to the current - Li Yan, University of California Los Angeles

• Freire in vocational school - Huiru Zhu, Chapman University

• Treating Students as a Bank or Initiating a Dialogue: Some Preliminary Freirean Exploration in Chinese Classes - Wenchao ZHANG, Teachers' College at Beijing Union University