Pedagogy of the Oppressor: What Was Freire's Theory for Transforming the Privileged and Powerful?

This conceptual analysis discusses how Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" theorizes the transformation of the oppressor. This work has played a major role in the creation, maintenance, and reinvigoration of critical pedagogy. The paper describes Freire's theory for transforming the oppressor and critically assesses his theory. Freire offers a general theory for transforming a somewhat abstract oppressor, thus leaving it up to the reader to decide whether to be the oppressor or the oppressed. To address this issue, the paper examines "Black Feminist Thought" by Patricia Hill Collins for a compatible yet distinct theory of how to engage in critical dialogues given the varied intersectionality of identities. It utilizes Collins' theory to problematize Freire and construct a synthesis called pedagogy of the oppressor (a variant of critical pedagogy that emphasizes the radical task of identifying as the oppressor in order to divest oneself of one's complicity with dehumanization and form solidarity with the relatively oppressed). Both Freire and Collins believe that the knowledge necessary for liberating oppressed-oppressor relationships must come from the oppressed as they speak truth to power. Both retain a sense of the reality of hierarchical power in their dialogical theories, differing in their definitions of the oppressed. (Contains 19 references.) (SM)