Critical consciousness, conscientization, or in

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken a ...

and

educational theorist Education sciences or education theory (traditionally often called ''pedagogy'') seek to describe, understand, and prescribe education policy and practice. Education sciences include many topics, such as pedagogy, andragogy, curriculum, learning, ...

Paulo Freire Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work '' Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the found ...

, grounded in post-Marxist critical theory. Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing for the perception and exposure of social and political contradictions. Critical consciousness also includes taking action against the oppressive elements in one's life that are illuminated by that understanding.

Coinage

The English term ''conscientization'' is a translation of the

term , which is also translated as "

consciousness raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

" and "critical consciousness". The term was popularized by

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian educator, activist, and theorist

in his 1970 work ''

Pedagogy of the Oppressed ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' ( pt, Pedagogia do Oprimido) is a book by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, written in Portuguese between 1967–68, but published first in Spanish in 1968. An English translation was published in 1970, with the Por ...

''. Freire was teaching the poor and illiterate members of Brazilian society to read at a time when literacy was a requirement for suffrage and dictators ruled many

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

n countries. The term originally derives from

Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...

's coinage of a French term, , in his 1952 book, ''Black Skins, White Masks''.

Overview

Paulo Freire defines critical consciousness as the ability to intervene in reality in order to change it. Critical consciousness proceeds through the identification of "generative themes", which Freire identifies as "iconic representations that have a powerful emotional impact in the daily lives of learners." In this way, individual consciousness helps end the "

culture of silence A conspiracy of silence, or culture of silence, describes the behavior of a group of people of some size, as large as an entire national group or profession or as small as a group of colleagues, that by unspoken consensus does not mention, discuss ...

" in which the socially dispossessed internalize the negative images of themselves created and propagated by the oppressor in situations of extreme poverty. Liberating learners from this mimicry of the powerful, and from the fratricidal violence that results therefrom is a major goal of critical consciousness. Critical consciousness is a fundamental aspect of Freire's concept of

popular education Popular education is a concept grounded in notions of class, political struggle, and social transformation. The term is a translation from the Spanish educación popular or the Portuguese educação popular and rather than the English usage ...

Arlene Goldbard Arlene Goldbard is a writer, social activist and consultant whose focus is the intersection of culture, politics, and spirituality. She is best known as an advocate for cultural democracy and a creator of cultural critique and new cultural policy p ...

, an author on the subject of community cultural development finds the concept of conscientization to be a foundation of community cultural development. From the glossary of Goldbard's 2006 book ''New Creative Community'': "Conscientization is an ongoing process by which a learner moves toward critical consciousness. This process is the heart of liberatory education. It differs from "consciousness raising" in that the latter may involve transmission of preselected knowledge. Conscientization means engaging in

praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...

, in which one both reflects and takes action on their social reality to break through prevailing mythologies and reach new levels of awareness—in particular, awareness of

oppression Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination ...

, being an "object" of others’ will rather than a self-determining "subject". The process of conscientization involves identifying contradictions in experience through dialogue and becoming part of the process of changing the world."

History of application

The ancient

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...

first identified the essence of critical consciousness when philosophers encouraged their students to develop an "impulse and willingness to stand back from humanity and nature... ndto make them objects of thought and criticism, and to search for their meaning and significance. In his books ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' and ''Education for Critical Consciousness'',Freire, P. (2005) ''Education for Critical Consciousness.'' New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Freire explains critical consciousness as a sociopolitical educative tool that engages learners in questioning the nature of their historical and social situation, which Freire addressed as "reading the world". The goal of critical consciousness, according to Freire, should be acting as subjects in the creation of democratic society. In

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

, Freire implies

intergenerational equity Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the idea of fairness or justice between generations. The concept can be applied to fairness in dynamics between children, youth, adults, and seniors. It can al ...

between students and teachers in which both learn, both question, both reflect and both participate in

meaning-making In psychology, meaning-making is the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships, and the self. The term is widely used in constructivist approaches to counseling psychology and psychotherapy, especial ...

. Using this idea, and describing current instructional methods as homogenization and lockstep standardization, alternative approaches are proposed, such as the

Sudbury model A Sudbury school is a type of school, usually for the K-12 age range, where students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by a direct democracy in which students and staff are equal citizens. Students use t ...

, an alternative approach in which children, by enjoying personal freedom thus encouraged to exercise personal responsibility for their actions, learn at their own pace rather than following a previously imposed chronologically-based curriculum. In a similar form students learn all the subjects, techniques and skills in these schools. The staff are minor actors, the "teacher" is an adviser and helps just when asked. The

maintains that

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of di ...

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

, critical consciousness, intergenerational equity, and political consciousness included, must be learned through experience, as Aristotle said: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." Picking up on Freire's definition of critical consciousness, Joe L. Kincheloe has expanded the definition of the concept in his work on postformalism. In Kincheloe's formulation postformalism connects cognition to critical theoretical questions of power and social justice. In this context Kincheloe constructs a critical theory of cognition that explores questions of meaning, emancipation vis-a-vis ideological inscription, and a particular focus on the socio-political construction of the self. With these concerns in mind Kincheloe's postformal critical consciousness engages questions of purpose, issues of human dignity, freedom, authority, reconceptualized notions of reason, intellectual quality, and social responsibility. Postformal critical consciousness stimulates a conversation between critical pedagogy and a wide range of social, cultural, political economic, psychological, and philosophical concerns. Kincheloe employs this "multilogical conversation" to shape new modes of self-awareness, more effective forms of social, political, and pedagogical action, and an elastic model of an evolving critical consciousness (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1993; Kincheloe, 1999; Thomas and Kincheloe, 2006). Freire's development of critical consciousness has been expanded upon in several academic disciplines and common applications. Public health community collaborations focused on HIV prevention for women, the role of critical consciousness in adult education, and the effect of peer pressure on cigarette smokers Freire's notion of critical consciousness is, in part, a type of

political consciousness Following the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx outlined the workings of a political consciousness. The politics of consciousness Consciousness typically refers to the idea of a being who is self-aware. It is a distinction often re ...

. In educational programs for youth and adolescents, some instructors have implemented curricula aimed at encouraging students to develop a critical consciousness within subject-specific material. Instructors can teach language arts, science, and social science lessons while guiding students to connect academic material to their experiences, explore themes of social justice, and discuss these ideas collaboratively in the classroom. In application, raising critical consciousness in young students can lead to successful outcomes in terms of students' social-emotional well-being, academic performance, and increased pursuit of careers after completing high school. While some studies provide support for developing critical consciousness in students due to the potential benefits, other studies present conflicting results. For example, research has also shown that students who demonstrate lower critical consciousness levels may experience less depressed moods and higher grades. Due to limitations associated with the predominantly qualitative designs of many studies on critical consciousness in education, further research is needed using rigorous, controlled quantitative designs to more clearly understand the relationship between critical consciousness and young students’ trajectory.

Coinage

Overview

History of application

See also

References

Further reading