O modelo Freireano de educação popular e os fundamentos do comunitarismo

Abstract

The principal objective of this thesis is to bring the debate between communitarianism and liberalism into the context of popular education, proposing a reinterpretation of the thought of Paulo Freire, from the communitarian approach, differentiating it from the thought of the typically liberal New School authors of his time. Communitarian assumptions are spread throughout Freire’s work, especially in his defence of popular culture, placing it in opposition to liberal assumptions, despite his progressive spirit and his training having taken place within the context of the New School movement. The concerns that drive our argument are as follows: to what extent does Freire’s pedagogy reinforce the communitarian assumptions that converge to the interests of the social theory communitarian? Can it assist in the expansion of popular sovereignty? To what extent can Freire’s pedagogy, updated with this approach, contribute to the strengthening of popular sovereignty and influence public policies in public commitment to the socio-cultural demands of different groups, taking into account a wide range of interests and values? In answering these questions, we can fill some gaps and expand the spaces for debate about the foundations and purpose of Popular Education. Similarly, the debate permeates the dispute between liberals and communitarians, in how these demands can be included. Liberals defend the principle of formal equality, that press for individual rights, and the communitarians defend the demand for recognition of cultural groups, showing the contradictions present in social organization. The debate runs through the different models of democracy. The formal model of liberal democracy makes the concepts of freedom and equality abstract, in addition to disregarding any trait of cultural tradition. It produces some phenomena that beset modernity and contribute to the strengthening of capitalism, such as the process of massification, alienation, uprooting and homogenization of cultures, factors that affect the identity of the subjects and, therefore, their conscious participation in public life. The model of participatory democracy, in turn, assumes active participation and concrete living conditions. The thesis points to the contradictions and suggests that contextualized education can generate resistance against individualism, in addition to identifying possible paths for a participatory democracy separate to communitarianism. Freire shows an educational perspective that assumes a principal of politics that helps to foster the practice of participatory democracy, especially because it advocates dialogue as the essence of all education. The proposal of political literacy, arising from the incentive to understand the world and create learning in communion, is inserted in the context of culture and not the atomized individual.