"The methodology of the late Paulo Freire, once considered such a threat to the established order that he was "invited" to leave his native Brazil, has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm." -"With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come."--BOOK JACKET.

Translated from the Portuguese Pedagogia do oprimido.

Publisher's foreword --Introduction to the anniversary edition / Donaldo Macedo -- Foreword / Richard Shaull -- Preface -- 1. The justification for a pedagogy of the oppressed; the contradiction between the oppressors and the oppressed, and how it is overcome; oppression and the oppressors ; oppression and the oppressed; liberation: not a gift, not a self-achievement, but a mutual process -- 2. The "banking" concept of education as an instrument of oppression--its presuppositions--a critique ; the problem-posing concept of education as an instrument for liberation--its presuppositions ; the "banking" concept and the teacher-student contradiction ; the problem-posing concept and the supersedence of the teacher-student contradiction ; education : a mutual process, world-mediated ; people as uncompleted beings, conscious of their incompletion, and their attempt to be more fully human -- 3. Dialogics--the essence of education as the practice of freedom ; dialogics and dialogue ; dialogue and the search for program content ; the human-world relationship, "generative themes," and the program content of education as the practice of freedom ; the investigation of "generative themes" and its methodology ; the awakening of critical consciousness through the investigation of "generative themes" ; the various stages of the investigation -- 4. Antidialogics and dialogics as matrices of opposing theories of cultural action : the former as an instrument of oppression and the latter as an instrument of liberation ; the theory of antidialogical action and its characteristics : conquest, divide and rule, manipulation, and cultural invasion ; the theory of dialogical action and its characteristics : cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis.