Encounter with Paulo Freire's Critical Pedagogy: Visiting the Brazilian Social Context (1950s-1970s)

The wisdom and courage that Freire expressed when criticizing the structure of oppression were actually rooted in a very real-life experience. Of course, this kind of life experience includes Freire’s life in Brazil. Thus, the background of this research is that the development of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy was closely related to the political, social, and economic oppression in parts of Latin America. From this we can understand that Freire’s critical pedagogy was intimately related to the Brazilian social context. So the purpose of this paper intends to visit the Brazilian social context (1950s-1970s) sand explore its influence on Paul Freire’s critical pedagogy. Secondly, it aims to illuminate its implications for education. In order to complete this research purpose, the documentary analysis method is used by the author. Furthermore, the principal results of this paper are to discuss implications for education. The implications are as follows: (1) education should build a more just society; (2) education is to let students change from “being for others” to “being for themselves”, and (3) pay much attention to justice in the teacher-student relationship. In conclusion, this paper contributes to the field of the exploration of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy by considering the historical, political, cultural, social, economic, educational, and religious aspects. This paper discusses some implications for education. These are important aspects of the research.