Resources

This new book, constructed from Paulo Freire’s writings near the end of his life, is characterized by the eloquence of his dreams—dreams that constituted the utopia underlying Freire’s lifelong work. Freire challenges all educators to create Circles of Dialogues, or reflective spaces, for passionate and critical reflection that is coherent and humanizing, favoring the oppressed peoples of the world. The chapters, crafted toward the end of the twentieth century, reflect Freire’s deep concern with the assault by neoliberal policies on the basic democratic rights of the dispossessed, as he argues for the right and facility of the people to take power by reinventing power democratically. Freire’s critical reflections were prescient of the twenty-first century’s revolts and denunciations of autocratic and antidemocratic policies during the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, and other courageous demonstrations for social justice throughout the world. Once more, Freire challenges our conscience in accessible, deep, thought-provoking writings that urge us to rehumanize popular education, employing “critical reflection steeped in history, [and] a more critical knowledge of how society works and functions.” (From the Publisher)

Click Here for Book Review Abstract: We have long been encouraged to look to education, especially higher education, for the solution to social problems, particularly as a way out of poverty for the talented and the hard working. But in its appointed role as the path to upward mobility that makes inequality more acceptable, higher education is faltering these days. As funds for public institutions are cut and tuition costs soar everywhere; as for-profit education races into the breach; and as student debt grows wildly; the comfortable future once promised to those willing to study hard has begun to fade from sight. So now is a good time to take a more serious look at the ways class structures higher education and the ways teachers can bring it into focus in the classroom. In recent decades, scholarly work and pedagogical practice in higher education have paid increasing attention to issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality.But among these four terms of analysis -- and clearly they are interrelated -- class is often an afterthought, and work that does examine class and higher education tends to focus only on admissions, on who is in the college classroom, not on what happens there. Class and the College Classroom offers a broader look at the connections between college teaching and social class.It collects and reprints twenty essays originally published in Radical Teacher, a journal that has been a leader in the field of critical pedagogy since 1975. This wide-ranging and insightful volume addresses the interests, concerns, and pedagogical needs of teachers committed to social justice and provides them with new tools for thinking and teaching about class. (From the Publisher)