paulo freire, jürgen habermas, and critical pedagogy: implications for comparative education∗

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Paulo Freire, Jürgen Habermas, and critical pedagogy:Implications for comparative educationCarlos Alberto Torres a b & Raymond Allen Morrow ca Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies , University ofCalifornia (UCLA) , Los Angelesb Director of the Latin American Centerc Professor in the Department of Sociology , University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta,CanadaPublished online: 26 Jan 2010.

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Paulo Freire, Jürgen Habermas, and CriticalPedagogy: Implications for Comparative Education*

Carlos Alberto Torres and Raymond Allen Morrow

Why Habermas and Freire?

Paulo Freire, an educator born in Brazil in 1921 and later forced into exile for a longperiod of time, and who passed away 2 May 1997 is perhaps the most internationallywell-known figure in postwar adult education. As a consequence his work is knownprimarily in educational circles, especially as an expert on Third World literacy training.In recent years, however, he has been widely cited in the context of the controversialform of curriculum theory whose underlying philosophy of education has becomelabeled 'critical pedagogy,' a term associated with teaching strategies sensitive to theeffects of relations of power based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc. on learningand consciousness formation.

In contrast to Freire s more humble association with Third World adult education,Habermas, born in Germany in 1929, is often acknowledged as the most influentialGerman philosopher and social theorist of the postwar period. Nevertheless, this statushas been contested within professional philosophy, given Habermas's sociologicalinterests and his challenge to both the technical and purely scientific aspirations ofmainstream analytical philosophy and classical metaphysical speculation. Morespecifically, he is generally regarded as the most important contemporary representedof'critical theory,' a term that alludes to the tradition of critical social theory originatingin the Frankfurt School in Germany in the late 1920s. Accordingly, his difficult workhas been recognised only peripherally in professional philosophy. His greater impacthas been in the human sciences generally, primarily among specialists in social andpolitical theory. He is not normally known as an educational theorist in the strictsense, though philosophers of education and curriculum theorists have at times drawnupon his work.

It would be difficult to imagine two more contrasting figures than Paulo Freireand Jürgen Habermas, yet even a cursory knowledge of the work of either wouldsuggest significant affinities that have often been alluded to but rarely explored indepth. But on occasion attention has been brought to the kinship between theirenterprises, especially with respect to their joining of pedagogical and moral concerns.

* Keynote address to the World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, (Cape Town, SouthAfrica, 12-17 July, 1998). This address is related to the book Critical Theory and Education: Freire,Habermas and the Dialogical Subject. (New York, Teachers College Press, Columbia University, in press).

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Carlos AlbertoTorres and Raymond Allen Morrow

Yet Habermas has been only a peripheral influence on the critical pedagogy literature,especially relative to Freire. On the other hand, Freire has only occasionally (especiallymore recently) been linked to the tradition of critical social theory.

Why Habermas and Freire? We take that the answer is largely self-evident, thoughdetailing some of the reasons is illuminating. Both draw from continental (European)philosophy and social theory to explore the most crucial problems of our time. Theymove across various specialisations without apology. Granted, they began their careerin very different environments with different purposes. Habermas, a Germanphilosopher in postwar Germany, has been situated at the crossroads of the granddebates of Western civilisation. Freire, a Brazilian trained in law and fascinated bylanguage and philosophy, began his career in the parochial environment of NortheastBrazil working in SESI (a service for training set up industrialists). Yet despite differentpersonalities, biographical origins and disciplinary backgrounds, they share basicconcerns and conceptions. They take the interrelation between philosophy and thehuman sciences as central. Both draw freely from virtually every discipline in thehuman sciences. Both engage in theorising with no apologies; both have developedesoteric languages and theoretical concepts that have struck a cord internationally inthe social sciences, e.g. 'the democratic public sphere' and the 'ideal speech situation'(Habermas), and 'education for liberation' and 'conscientization' (Freire). Both havesought to engage public issues and develop analyses with wider practical and politicalimplications.

Our basic claim will be that in important respects Habermas and Freire takentogether provide a framework for further developing the themes joined in the greatAmerican pragmatist John Dewey. Working independently and in very differentcontexts, they unknowingly engaged in a division of intellectual labour whose mutualaffinities and complementarities are the subject of this study.

Whereas Habermas picked up the more systematic philosophical and politicalissues of pragmatism and its unresolved relationship to Hegel and Marx — its critiqueof positivism and defence of democratic theory, Freire developed the concretepedagogical aspects of Dewey with his 'Escola Nova' based on the concept of 'lived-experience.' A number of surprising affinities can be pointed to justify this strategy ofcomparison.

Both were influenced early in their careers by existentialist philosophy but reactedagainst the political conservatism of Heidegger. Both at various points deal extensivelywith the work of early nineteenth century philosopher Hegel in working throughproblems with Karl Marx. Both were and are concerned with what the contemporaryAmerican neopragmatist Richard Rorty has called continuing the 'democraticconversation.'

For Dewey, Freire and Habermas education is not just about education, but isalso about the formation and expansion of democracy and democratic citizenship.

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Critical Pedagogy: Implications for Comparative Education

Even more than Dewey, their political philosophies do not shy away from therecognition that democracy takes place in the context of capitalism; both are critics ofcapitalist social relations, though they reject simplistic notions of working classrevolution or socialist alternatives. Both focus on domination and exploitation asconcepts (late capitalism, dependent capitalism), but are especially concerned to drawout the subjective and communicative aspects of interpersonal power relations andpotentials for their transformation.

One immediate consequence of our comparative strategy is to rescue boththeorists from ghettoisation within their respective intellectual traditions — Habermasas a mandarin, esoteric German philosopher and Freire as a traditional Latin Americanrhetorical pensador. Habermas is much more of a passionate and grounded thinkerthan he is often given credit for, and Freire has a philosophical depth and rigor that isnot always apparent in his formulations of a practical pedagogy oriented to teachers.In short, we hope how both transcend such stereotypes, a claim illuminated by anexploration of their complementarity. In the process, it becomes possible to showwhen and how Habermas offers Freire arguments that justify, ground, and furtherelaborate his positions; and to suggest when and how Freire contributes to the practicaland political concerns of Habermas at the level of concrete interactions and practices.

Problems of Comparison

The absence of more sustained comparison stems in part from the range of differencesthat make it difficult to mediate between the two authors. Three differences are ofcrucial importance: first, their location, respectively, in a Third World industrialisingsociety (Brazil) and an advanced European one (Germany) and their respective focuson social practice as opposed to social theory; second, assessing the degree to whichthe thought of each can be treated as compared a relatively coherent whole, despitethe twists and turns of their intellectual development; and third, the difficulty ofpinning down the disciplinary frame of reference of their contributions and establishingthe comparability of the different vocabularies through which they voice their concerns.The first question can be dealt with through a consideration of their work as having— despite differences of focus, style and emphasis — both a theoretical and practicaldimension, as a response the rise of fascism as a strategy for dealing with the crises ofcapitalist development; the second will be resolved in the direction of acknowledgingsignificant shifts of emphasis, but in a form that would not qualify as a fundamentalepistemological or theoretical 'break' or discontinuity; the third will be addressedfinally through a consideration of their shared approach as a species of critical socialtheory.

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From Centre to Periphery: Fascism and Capitalist CrisisAs Emile Durkheim, the French founding father of the sociology of education, firstdemonstrated at the end of the nineteenth century, the crises of modern societies canbe read directly from the history of education and related policy debates. Thehierarchical and class-based system of education inherited by the Weimar Republicwas a crucial aspect of the formation of the authoritarian social character that proveda crucial obstacle to working class mobilisation against fascism and became a target oflater de-Nazification policies developed by the allied occupation forces after 1945.The case of Brazil and the Third World generally resembles late nineteenth and earlytwentieth century Europe and early capitalism in many respects, but is also embeddedin issues unique to the late twentieth century, e.g. globalisation and environmentalcrisis.

More specifically, both Freire and Habermas represent perspectives that resistwhat has become the dominant focus more recently in both contexts: the rationalisationof education under the heading of optimising economic development. In other words,issues of equity and cultural formation have given way to strategies oriented towardthe resolution of other, apparently more pressing economic demands. In thisconnection, critical theories of education have necessarily incorporated a conserving, ifnot conservative, aspect in defending some of the more traditional functions andgoals of education.

Viewed from the perspective of fundamental questions about the nature ofknowledge and the formation and change of human agents, the differences betweenthese two contexts also becomes less than appearances might suggest. Not only aremany advanced societies confronted with urban and rural ghettoes that resemble ThirdWorld poverty, many of the issues of credentialisation, middle class frustration andeducational cutbacks increasingly affect large sectors of the Third World societies withlarge industrial bases.

Freire's work called attention originally in his earlier experiences with literacytraining in Angicos, North-East Brazil. As first Director (1961-1964) of the CulturalExtension Service of the University of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, Freire hasbeen associated with the Cadiolic Left and his thought considered a source of inspirationfor theology of liberation in Latin America.1 His pedagogical work has been associatedto the Movimento de Educaçâo de Base or Movement for Grass-roots Education,2 the

1. See the pioneer work of Emmanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, New York, 1970. Inaddition see Scott Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985, Stanford,1986; Marcio Moreira Alves, O Cristo do Povo, Rio de Janeiro, 1968; Ruben Alves 'Towards aTheology of Liberation.' Princeton: Ph. D. dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1969;Carlos Alberto Torres, The Church, Religion and Hegemony in Latin America. Argentina inComparative Perspective, New York, 1992.

2. See Celso de Rui Beisiegel, Política e Educação Popular, São Paulo, 1982; Moacir Gadotti,Concepção Dialética da Educação. Um Estudo Introdutório, São Paulo, 1986.

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Centres for Popular Culture, and the Ecdessial Base Communities in Brazil.3 Appointedby the populist government of Joao Goularas President of the National Commissionof Popular Culture in 1963, and as Coordinator of the National Plan of LiteracyTraining (1963), his work in literacy training had a profound impact in the constitutionof citizenship in Brazil. The importance of literacy training for citizenship buildingand the constitution of the popular sectors in Brazil cannot be underestimated. Torreshas argued that:

Since until 1983 only the literate could vote in Brazil, the desire for literacy programsshould be understood as a mechanism for increasing the number of voters, which wouldpolitically sustain the regime in power. To this extent, the figures are impressive: in theearly 1960s, northeastern Brazil had 15 million illiterates out of a total population of 25million; in 1964, the year of the coup d' état, in the state of Sergipe alone, literacytraining added 80,000 new voters to the 90,000 already existing. In Pernambuco, thetotal of voters went from 800,000 to 1 million.4

Freire was eventually forced into exile, first in Bolivia and then in Chile in 1964where he remained working for a project of agrarian reform until he departed to teachas a visiting professor in Harvard in 1969, accepting a permanent position as educationaladviser in the World Congress of Churches headquarters in Geneva in 1970 where heremained until a decade later when he was allowed to return to Brazil, and was appointedin several Brazilian universities as professor. When the Partido de los Trabalhadores(Workers Party or PT) won the Municipal elections of 15 November 1988 in SâoPaulo, Paulo Freire, a member of the party since it was founded in 1979, and Presidentof the Workers University sponsored by the PT, was a natural choice for Secretary ofEducation of the City of Säo Paulo.5 Freire passed away 2 May 1997.

On the other hand, Jürgen Habermas born in Düsseldorf in 1929, spent hisearly year in Gummersbach and grew up in the shadow of German fascism, includingbeing drafted into the German army at age fifteen. During the years 1949-1954 hemoved from the Universities of Göttingen, Bonn and Zürich, studying a wide rangeof subjects including philosophy, history, economics, psychology, and Germanliterature. Following a brief period as a journalist, he moved toward sociology by

3. See Mainwaring, op. cit. pp. 45 and 66.4. See Carlos A. Torres, The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America, New York, 1990, p.

40. See also Thomas G. Sanders' essay, The Paulo Freire Method: Literacy Training andConscientization, American Universities Field Staff, Report West Coast South America, vol.XV/1 (1968).

5. See Carlos Alberto Torres, Introduction to Paulo Freire on Higher Education. A Dialogue at theNational University of Mexico, Edited by Miguel Escobar, Alfredo L. Fernández, and GilbertoGuevara-Niebla with Paulo Freire, Albany, New York, 1994, pp. 1-2. See also, Pilar O'Cadiz,Pia Linquist Wong and Carlos Alberto Torres, Education and Democracy: Paulo Freire, SocialMovements, and Educational Reform in São Paulo, Bolder, 1998.

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becoming Theodor Adornos assistant (1956-59) at the newly revived Frankfurt Institutefor Social Research. Ironically, however, the re-established institute had largelyabandoned the research program of the 1930s, which Habermas only discovered incoming upon the old institute Journalfor Social Research. For this reason the Institutefounding fadier Max Horkheimer saw Habermas's revival of left-wing themes a threatin die 1960s and opposed his association with it on various occasions. In 1961 he wasawarded professorship at Heidelberg where he became active engaged widi a criticalappropriation of the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gademer. Then hemoved back to Frankfurt where he took over Max Horkheimer s chair in philosophyand sociology where he became actively involved in the emerging German studentmovement in the late 1960s. Eventually, however, he became isolated from the studentmovement because of charging it with tendencies toward 'left-wing fascism,' a splitthat long prejudiced the reception of Habermas on the German left. From 1971-1983 he worked as a director in the Max Plank Institute of Starnberg near Munichand coordinated a number of interdisciplinary research projects concerned with thelegitimation crises of the advanced capitalist state. Following there he returned to achair in philosophy as the University of Frankfurt, and has retired recently.

But Habermas was not merely an ivory tower professor of philosophy andsociology. Beyond his numerous interviews, speaking engagements and visits arounddie world, on several occasions he became involved public debates dirough journalisticinterventions on topics such as the educational reform, the student movement,conservative German historians, German reunification, the Gulf War, etc. In fact,Habermas has played a role in German intellectual life that his American readers havenot fully appreciated.

The issue of modernisation introduces the question of crises of development.Though always internationalist in their concerns, the thought of both Freire andHabermas is rooted with profound concern with the crisis of their respective societies,Brazil and Germany. In a manner analogous to that of the early Habermas's concernwith the integration of post-fascist West Germany into the European community, theorigins of Freire's thought can be traced to a concern with the 'modernisation' ofBrazil. To be sure, important differences derive from the contexts of an advanced asopposed to relatively underdeveloped society, but there is convergence in the sense ofurgency regarding the responsibility of educational institutions in this process oftransition. In the case of Brazil the focus of attention for Freire was of course literacytraining, whereas in the West German one it was the critique of remnants of NationalSocialist ideology, démocratisation of the university, and the enhancement ofeducational access.

Despite the rootedness of both thinkers in the crisis of a specific nationaltraditions and its flirtation with fascist alternatives, both developed in the course oftheir career a global perspective that sought to address broader, more universal questions.Indeed, this impulse led Habermas away from his earlier concern with German

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education and the effects of the mass media on democratic participation toward areconstructed historical materialism oriented toward grounding universal normativeor value principles (i.e. discourse ethics). In other words, Habermas's preoccupationwith the limitations of classical critical theory inherited from the Frankfurt School ledhim to a rethinking of the problematic of praxis, hence toward a theory ofcommunicative action. For Freire it contributed to the reformulation of his educationalideas in the context of more advanced societies, thus addressing distinctive new patternsof urban inequality, along with recognition of gender, race and ethnic bases ofdomination that had been previously neglected. Similarly, the specific focus on apedagogy of the oppressed led him to a rich model of the dialogical social subject thathad implications which went far beyond the specific context of literacy training inmarginalised working classes.

Continuities and DiscontinuitiesA related question is the relationship between these life histories the development oftheir social theoretical approaches. A comparative analysis of Habermas and Freirecannot avoid a word of caution in regard to the continuities within their theoreticalstrategies. Can their respective writings be compared as relatively unified wholes, or isit necessary to taken into account fundamental theoretical shifts diat preclude anygeneral comparison?

Freire is the one who has the most discontinuous academic career because ofliving in exile and because he cannot be classified as a traditional academic. As aconsequence, he could be considered one of what has been described as one of the lastpublic intellectuals following Russell Jacoby's insights, though in a different wayHabermas can be viewed in these terms as well. Hence, virtually all of writings aredirected to broad intellectual audiences. Freire at the same time has had tremendouscontinuities and few deviations from his agenda. One may find him pursuing researchon language on literacy and generative themes in Chile in the early sixties, and yet adifferent yet similar epoch in the seventies, i.e. there is a continuity of agenda, themesand concepts. Yet there are significant discontinuities in the style of representation,having chosen in the sixties and seventies a more conventional academic form (booksand essays). But in the late seventies and eighties he switched to books based ondialogues as a form of re-presentation. Yet the very same notion of dialogue is at theheart of his political and theoretical agenda. There are concepts in Freire which pervadeall his work: dialogue, democracy, liberatory education, domination, epistemology asthe founding concept of education. In short, a very strong continuity with fewdepartures. However, there are three key emergent themes from the basic theory ofdomination: gender, downplaying religion later, and the reaffirmation of the importanceof class as a critique of his critics in the sixties who are now free market liberals.

In contrast to Freire, Habermas's thought emerged within a tradition with rootsin Hegelian re-reading of Marxism — the Frankfurt School — which he eventually

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radically revises to the point where the label 'Marxist' appears problematic to many.As a consequence, his earliest writings remain primarily within the purview of classicalCritical Theory. To the extent there is such a break in Habermas' thinking, it could beargued that the earliest work of Habermas is not fully consistent with Freire s socialtheory because of its reliance on a somewhat dogmatic conception of ideology critique.6

Accordingly, our comparison will encompass Habermas's middle and later writingswhich move toward a linguistic and interactionist re-direction then converges withFreire's dialogical approach.

A Framework for Comparison: Critical Theory and the Developmental SubjectThird, we are confronted with developing a conceptual framework capable of sensitisingus to the shared concerns obscured by different vocabularies and contexts of writing.The problems in dealing with Freire are almost the opposite of those of Habermas.Given the origins of Freire's writings in the practice of literacy training, and that hisinfluence and reception have largely been confined to educational circles (above alladult education), the significance and deeper theoretical foundations of his criticalpedagogy have not been adequately recognised or appreciated in other disciplines. Atbest he is considered in the context of critical pedagogy as a philosopher of education.Though not altogether false, this approach constrains discussion in disciplinary waysthat do not embrace the full implications of his work.

To preface our work, it is necessary to introduce the terms of reference requiredfor recognising and analysing the affinities between Freire and Habermas asrepresentative of critical theory. Two basic considerations guide our approach. First,we find it useful most generally to view their work as both participating in the traditionof criticalsocial theory which, though having earlier roots in the Marxist tradition, haslong contributed a non-dogmatic, supradisciplinary reformulation of social theoryadequate to the crises of contemporary societies. Second, the substantive parallelsbetween their contributions can be interpreted to a working out of issues implied butnot resolved within the Marxian concept of praxis in the direction of a critical socialpsychology that grounds a critical pedagogy oriented toward what will often term atheory of the dialogical subject, as well as a developmental subject. These interrelatedconsiderations require further introductory clarification.

Situating Habermas under the heading of critical theory is not problematic,since he is recognised as the most important contemporary representative of theFrankfurt School tradition. However, it might appear initially problematic to classifyFreire in these terms, given his roots respectively in Brazilian social theory and problems

6. As Habermas eventually notes, this led the older Frankfurt School toward a strongly functionalistand pessimistic conception of social and cultural reproduction. Further, it contributed to a lackof concern with the scientific credibility of critical theory, a lack of engagement with the empiricalsocial science, and lack of concern with the concrete struggles of democratisation.

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specific to education. Yet the frequent use of the term critical pedagogy by those whohave appropriated Freirean pedagogy in non-Latin American contexts is suggestive ofthe affinity. Reference to the relationship between critical theory and education isinevitably associated with that of critical pedagogy which has come to mean manydifferent things. For us, it is primarily a way of designating the body of work influencedby Paulo Freire. As Henry Giroux has recently acknowledged, it is a disparate fieldthat should be linked to Freire's foundational work.7 The key shifts that have takenplace related above all to the various problems of generalising and adapting Freireanthemes to apply to different constellations of domination and dialogue: advancedsocieties, ethnic and racial conflicts, gender, etc.

The advantage of locating Freire in this broader context is that eliminates anyneed to claim the he provides a self-sufficient theoretical formulation or that his workis that of an isolated prophet. Rather, his work can be viewed as an approach originallydeveloped on the margins of Latin America but influenced by and later reciprocallyinfluencing European and North American social theory.

The necessary mediating categories for comparing Freire and Habermas thenreadily follow from an ecumenical perspective on critical social theory. From thisperspective, critical theory is no longer an exclusively German phenomenon linkedwith the Frankfurt school; rather, it represents a general interdisciplinary andinternational tendency that has gone under various labels over the past couple ofdecades. In the context of education, critical theory is closely associated with anhistorical and reflexive conception of social and cultural reproduction.

As well, critical theory has taken a skeptical or critical stance toward much ofthe recent discussion that makes strong claims about a 'postmodernism' having displacedmodernity. In Social Theory and Education we argued for an integrative view of thesocial sciences from a critical modernist perspective that acknowledges the significanceof many of the cultural phenomena characterised -as postmodern. But we viewed theseas largely continuous with the ongoing revision of the Enlightenment tradition. Nordid we accept the contention of many postmodern theorists that social theory is nolonger capable of articulating analysis and critique of social institutions.8

In education the manifestation of critical theory can be found in the confluenceof several theoretical and methodological questions that cut across several academicand professional domains. In this work we want to stress the ways in which criticaltheory is implicitly pedagogical, and learning processes are implicitly critical as part ofthe process of self-formation. As well, the most fundamental assumption of both

7. Interview with Henry Giroux in Carlos A Torres, Education, Power and Personal Biography.Dialogues with Critical Educators, New York, 1998.

8. Raymond Allen Morrow and Carlos Alberto Torres, Social Theory and Education: A Critique ofTheories of Social and Cultural Reproduction, Albany, New York, 1995.

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Carlos Alberto Torres and Raymond Allen Morrow

perspectives is an understanding of the formation of the human subject in the processesof communication, of dialogue, hence the appeal of the concept of a dialogicalimagination.

At first glance these three labels refer to bodies of literature which have only atenuous connections with each other. We understand critical theory as the cumulativetraditions studying the nature of society, especially as originating in political philosophy(hence its relation as well to social criticism), but culminating in a complex relationshipto empirical social science. Our understanding of social theory includes a body ofdiscourses that includes all of the social and historical sciences, but because of theinterdisciplinary nature of reality they are elements of social theory in every discipline.The term critical itself, in the context of'critical theory' has a range of meanings notapparent in common sense where critique implies negative evaluations. This is, to besure, one sense of critique in critical theory, given its concern with unveiling ideologicalmystifications in social relations; but another even more fundamental connotation ismethodological, given a concern with critique as involving establishing thepresuppositions of approaches to the nature of reality, knowledge, and explanation;yet another dimension of critique is associated with the self-reflexivity of the investigatorand the linguistic basis of representation.

As a research program, Critical Theory implies several dimensions. As a humanscience, it provides a humanistic, antipositivist approach to social theory based on theagency-structure dialectic. As a historical science of society, it takes the form of anhistorical sociology. Finally as socioculturel critique it takes the form of normativetheory, that is a theory about values and what ought to be. Critical imagination isrequired to avoid identifying where we live here and now as somehow cast in stone bynatural laws.

What are the assumptions of the theory of society underlying critical pedagogy?Here the contribution of Freire, again, remains crucial. Freires early writings wereclosely tied to the context of literacy training in North East Brazil, a context thatinevitably evoked many of the classic themes of working class oppression in a ThirdWorld context. But even here Freires position could not be reduced to a classic Marxistrevolutionary model. The distinctive aspect of more recent versions of critical pedagogyhas been the association with critical social theory as a social theoretical frameworkfor working out the problems bequeathed by the failures of the Marxist tradition.Therefore, despite the postmodernist storm, critical pedagogy has involved a complexeffort to link critical theory and educational practices understood in Freirean terms:the relationship between societal reproduction and education; a structural sociologyof the curriculum; an interactionist understanding of classroom activities and the roleof the teacher situated in terms of the power relations that define education in relationto the constitution of the democratic pact of particular societies.

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The fundamental premise of critical pedagogy is that there are crucial obstaclesto learning that derive from the history of the social relations forming the educatorand student, obstacles that are a largely invisible as internalised in the participantsselves and reproduced in the relationships the define education as a social activity.The specific term used to describe those relations is that of a structure of domination,where the term does not refer, as does oppression, to immediate and visible relationsof power and force. In this more specialised sense found in critical theory and relatedforms of social psychology, domination refers to the latent, structural dimensions ofpower especially as unconsciously reproduced by individuals in the everyday lives.

As a consequence, critical pedagogy is not a general or comprehensive pedagogy;there are many obviously important aspects of learning that are not directly its concernand to which it refers for insight and practical advice. In as a consequence, it need notdeny altogether the obvious contributions of those who have analysed the reinforcementprinciples underlying learning or those of cognitive theories. Moreover, it has anespecially close affinity with cognitive and moral development theories. But in anothersense it is also the most general of pedagogies in that it is concerned with the largercontexts that have formed educational systems and continue to shape interaction withinit.

In some cases critical pedagogy is seen as particular type of radical pedagogy,especially view as a form of political practice. Critical theory does have a closerelationship to emancipatory education and education for social transformation andsocial change. But at the same time as a research strategy committed to the fallibilisticbasis of inquiry, it can step back to continuously re-examine those practices in thelight of accumulative evidence and changing circumstances. This gives critical theoryas a critical pedagogy a relation to both a general historicist stance, i.e. the changingnature of society, and a complementary empirical orientation, i.e. that what we thinkmight have been happening in the past or present is subject to continuous revision.

The specific focus of critical pedagogy is the changing role of subjectivity inpower relations, transformation of those relations, and discourse as a transformativeact. Central to critical pedagogy is the question of power and knowledge and howmanifestations of power mediate every form of human interaction, including theproduction of transmission of knowledge. For critical pedagogy knowledge cannot beneutral, though this does not necessarily undermine its status as reliable knowledge.But it does imply posing the question of knowledge for whom and for what and inwhat context. But we should qualify this statement from a critical realist perspective,knowledge is not merely nor exclusively political. We all have experienced the feelingof reading something that strikes a chord in us because of its poetic power to persuade,its moral content, or the force of its argument and evidence.

Beyond the general context of critical social theory, the second aspect of theframework of comparison involves a focus on Freire and Habermas's shared theory of

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Carlos AlbertoTorres and Raymond Allen MorrowI

the developmental subject. The problematic in question here is taken up in the classicalMarxist tradition in terms of the foundational but inadequately developed frameworkof the concepts of alienation and praxis. These were the concepts that enabled theearly Marx to talk about subjectivity and what we would today call social action orinteraction. The concepts of alienation (or estrangement) were used to describe negativeforms of interactive relations, especially in the context of work based on oppressivemarket relations. Praxis, on the other hand, is closely associated with the project ofrevolutionary praxis, i.e. collective activities of mobilisation that would eventuallyallow the working class to transcend the alienated division of capitalist labour.

But these categories, largely associated with the early work of Marx, were largelyeclipsed in the nineteenth century understanding of Marx. To this extent it is possibleto define twentieth century crisis in part as a response to the serious (social)psychologicaldeficits of classical Marxism. That is, the stress upon his theory of society as, exclusively,a form of political economy led to a neglect of the subjective, interactional, and culturaldimensions of social life. With the emergence of so-called Hegelian Marxism in the1920s, the concepts of alienation and praxis were recovered by recognising theircontinuing importance for Marx. But such concepts still failed to encompass thearray of social psychological concepts for a theory of social action and the subject. TheFrankfurt School turned to Freudian psychoanalysis for this purpose and developed atheory of socialisation and authority, particularly in the work of Eric Fromm and tosome extent Herbert Marcuse. Though the resulting analysis of relations of dominationin the history of the family helped clarify the appeal of Hitler and the failure of theGerman working classes to mobilise against fascism, it failed to provide the basis foreither a general account of social action or a conception of the individual consistentwith the Utopian revolutionary project of the Marxist tradition. Only with the morerecent appropriation of symbolic interactionist and phenomenological microsociology,along with cognitive developmental psychology, have critical theories of society finallyincorporated a comprehensive framework for analysis agency and resistance in socialaction. That is the reason that we use the notion of theories of a developmental subjectto refer to the problematic shared by Freire's critical pedagogy and Habermas's criticalsocial psychology. Unfortunately, given the limited space of this keynote address weneed to refer the reader to our larger project.9

Our general claim is that as part of a critical theory of society and history, Freireand Habermas taken together provide the basis for a developmental theory of thesubject based on a non-relativistic yet fully historical conception of human nature.Discussing such a conception of human nature necessarily requires touching on issuesranging from ontology and epistemology, and social psychology through historical

9. Raymond Allen Morrow and Carlos Alberto Torres, 'Critical Theory and Education: Freire,Habermas and the Dialogical Subject', New York, in press.

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(philosophical) anthropology. In this manner it becomes easier to find the mediatingconcepts that can bridge between their different origins and the apparent differentdisciplinary locus of their writing. This particular focus requires neglecting, however,a number of other themes in Habermas's more encyclopedia work.10

This strategy facilitates getting at and comparing some of the most distinctivecontributions of both Freire and Habermas. In the case of Freire, it allows movingaway from two problematic tendencies in current commentary on Freire and effortsto further develop his approach. On the one hand, the predominance of his influencein education, aftd most obviously (and justifiably) in the field of adult education, hastended to distract attention from the broader implications of his work. Ironically, thishas had the effect of limiting the depth of his appropriation within education, despitethe efforts of people such as Ira Shor and Henry Giroux. On the other hand, his workhas often been dismissed out of hand as 'idealist' and 'romantic' by those influencedby more conventional Marxist approaches to education, as well as those who lamenthis weakly developed theory of society, analysis of class and social movements, theoryof the state, etc. Many of these criticisms are misplaced to the extent that Freire doesnot attempt to provide a general theory of society, Third World development, or evenrevolution. By narrowing the focus of attention to his contributions to a critical socialpsychology it is possible to interpret his work in terms which are broader than those ofmerely an adult educator or theorist of literacy training, without falling into the trapof evaluating his work as a comprehensive theory of society and development in themanner more appropriate for Habermas.

In the case of Habermas, the advantage of this comparative strategy is to showhow his apparendy abstract theoretical concepts converge with, and have been surprisinganticipated in, the more practically oriented concerns of Freire's critical pedagogy. Inshort, it allows us to see more concretely the theoretical depth of Freire, as well as thepractical implications of Habermas.

Implications for Comparative Education

The preceding section situates the overall themes which articulate the relationshipbetween Paulo Freire, Jürgen Habermas and the tradition of Critical Pedagogy. Yet,there are many implications for the fields of comparative international education.This last section outlines two key topics for comparative education, the question ofdemocratic education and the relationships between education and the public sphere

10. Ray Morrow, has addressed the analysis of Habermas, and the general question of the differentvariants of social psychology in order to define more precisely the notion of a critical socialpsychology in a number of texts. See, for instance, his work with David Brown, Social Theoryand Methodology, London and Newbury Park, 1996.

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where the legacy of Freire and Habermas has enhanced the theoretical discussion inthe field.

Paulo Freire and Democratic EducationA central aspect of Freire's contribution, as suggested by Torres two decades ago is theconstitution of a political anthropology of education; an anthropology that offerspowerful perspectives to think about the démocratisation of educational practices andsocieties, in Latin America and elsewhere." This contribution in Freire's politicalanthropology, which is based on blurring the distinction between facts and values istwo fold: First, he addresses a serious dilemma of democracy that is, the constitutionof a democratic citizen. Second, he has advanced in the sixties, quite early comparedwith the postmodernist preoccupations of the eighties, the question of crossing bordersin education.

The notion of democracy entails the notion of a democratic citizenship, whereagents are responsible, able to participate, to choose their representatives and to monitortheir performance. These are not only political but also pedagogical practices sincethe construction of the democratic citizen implies the construction of a pedagogicsubject. Individuals are not, by nature themselves, ready to participate in politics.They have to be educated in democratic politics in a number of ways, includingnormative grounding, ethical behavior, knowledge of the democratic process, andtechnical performance. The construction of the pedagogic subject is a central conceptualproblem, a dilemma of democracy. To put it simply: democracy implies a process ofparticipation where all are considered equal. However, education involves a processwhereby the 'immature' are brought to identify with the principles and forms of life ofthe 'mature' members of society. Thus, the process of construction of the democraticpedagogic subject is a process of cultural nurturing but also it involves manipulatingprinciples of pedagogic and democratic socialisation in subjects who are neither tabularasa in cognitive or ethical terms, nor fully equipped for the exercise of their democraticrights and obligations.12

A second major contribution of Freire is his thesis advanced m pedagogy of theoppressed, and reiterated in countless writings, that the pedagogical subjects of theeducational process where not homogeneous citizens but culturally diverse individuals.From his notion of cultural diversity, he identified the notion of borders in education,

11. Carlos A. Torres, Paulo Freire: Educación y Concientización, Salamanca, 1980; Carlos AlbertoTorres (Ed.), Paulo Freire en América Latina, Mexico, 1980; Carlos Alberto Torres (Ed.), LaPraxis Educativa de Paulo Freire, Mexico, 1978-5th edition, 1987; Carlos Alberto Torres (Ed.),Entrevistas con Paulo Freire, Mexico, 1978—4th edition, 1986.

12. We are thankful to Walter Feinberg for this suggestion in personal communication to one ofthe authors. For a broader discussion of the connections between education, citizenship anddemocracy, see Carlos Alberto Torres, Education, Democracy and Multiculturalism: Dilemmas ofCitizenship in a Global World, Lahnman, Maryland, 1998.

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toand suggested that there is an ethical imperative to cross borders if we attempt .

educate for empowerment and not for oppression. Puiggrös and Torres argued that:

Perhaps it was Paulo Freire who very early in his pedagogy of the oppressed addressedthe meanings of border crossings, otherness, hybrid cultures, and asynchronicdevelopment in Latin America. In so doing, he showed the political implications ofpedagogical work. Freire argues that notions of oppression and domination are part andparcel of the pedagogical relationships between teachers and pupils in traditionalclassrooms. Thus the notion of 'extensionism' (i.e. the provision of the dominanteducational discourse to peasants in the context of agrarian reforms) was expressed notonly as part and parcel of a pedagogical discourse but also as part and parcel of a politicaldiscourse. A fundamental insight of Freire is that the social and pedagogical subjects ofeducation are not fixed, essential, or inflexible—i.e., the teacher is a student and thestudent a teacher. The cultural and pedagogical implications are that the place and roleof a teacher is not always and necessarily the extension of the role of the adult whitemen, or conversely a role performed by a female teacher subsumed under the discourseof hegemonic masculinity. Similarly as a product of European Logocentric thought,school knowledge is not always reproduced in schools, but it is also subject to contestationand resistance. While Freire criticized the western school in Latin America as bankingeducation and as an authoritarian device (that is, as a device transmitting officialknowledge and, at the same time, eliminating the pupil as subject of their own education),his pedagogy of liberation invites to dialogue in the context of multiple political andsocial struggles for liberation. Dialogue appears not only as a pedagogical tool, but alsoas a method of deconstruction of the way pedagogical and political discourses areconstructed.13

More than thirty years after Freire s main books were published, the concept of dialogical

education which challenges the positivistic value judgment/empirical judgment

distinction appears as a democratic tool for dealing with complex cultural conflicts in

the context of unequal and combined development of Latin American education, and

its applicability in industrial advanced societies is well documented.14

Jürgen Habermas: Education and the Critique of the Public Sphere

Habermas's discussions which focuses primarily on advanced capitalism, is rooted in a

broader neo-evolutionary conception of collective learning processes. By explicitly

linking macrosociological contradiction and social psychological processes, he can

propose that individual, but socially shared, 'motivational crises' can provide the basis

13. Carlos Alberto Torres and Adriana Puiggrós, 'The State and Public Education in Latin America,'in Carlos Alberto Torres and Adriana Puiggrós (editors), Latin American Education: ComparativePerspectives, Boulder, 1997.

14. See for instance, Paulo Freire and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy. Reading the Word and the World,South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1987; Ira Shor and Paulo Freire, A Pedagogy for Liberation.Dialogues on Transforming Education, South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1987. A fine philosophicalanalysis with clear methodological implications for education can be found in Nicholas Burbules,Dialogue in Teaching. Theory and Practice, New York, 1993.

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for broader social transformations. A central conclusion of this type of analysis is thatin advanced capitalism at last the proletariat no longer serves either as a guarantee ofchange or the necessary focal point of transformative mobilisation. A central theme ofHabermas's work is the problematic relationship between intellectuals and socialmovements in advanced capitalism, but this is usually taken up in the broader contextof traditional theory/praxis relations as defined within the Marxist tradition.

Public sphere is a concept elaborated by Jürgen Habermas in his seminal 1962contribution The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere}5 We must say fromthe beginning that the notion of public sphere could be seen as overlapping, butdistinct from die notion of civil society in classical eighteen century philosophy. NancyFraser captures critically the dimensions of Habermas' proposal:

[The public sphere] designates a theater in modern societies in which politicalparticipation is enacted through the medium of talk. It is the space in which citizensdeliberate about their common affairs, hence, an institutionalized arena of discursiveinteraction. This arena is conceptually distinct from the state; it is a site for the productionand circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state. The publicsphere in Habermas' sense is also conceptually distinct from the official economy; it isnot an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater fordebating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling. This concept of the publicsphere permits us to keep in view the distinction between state apparatuses, economicmarkets, and democratic associations, distinctions that are essential to democratic theory.16

Hence, the public sphere is distinct from the state; it is in Habermas' definition—which Fraser criticises as not wholly satisfactory—a body of private individualsconstituting a public dirough deliberation and discursive interaction. The concept ofthe public sphere, as Fraser aptly notes, cannot be equated with the concept ofcommunity because this

suggests a bounded and fairly homogenous group, and it often connotes consensus.'Public,' in contrast, emphasizes discursive interaction that is in principle unboundedand open-ended, and this in turn implies a plurality of perspectives. Thus the idea of apublic, better than that of a community, can accommodate internal differences,antagonisms, and debates.17

15. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Categoryof Bourgeois Society, tr. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence, Cambridge, MA, 1989.

16. Nancy Fraser, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually ExistingDemocracy.' In Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, editors, Between Borders. Pedagogy and thePolitics of Cultural Studies, New York and London, 1994, p. 82

17. Nancy Fraser, 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually ExistingDemocracy', Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, editors, Between Borders. Pedagogy and thePolitics of Cultural Studies, New York and London, 1994, p. 97.

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Given the scope, cultural diversity, and complexity of late capitalist societies, afundamental question is the following: where is exactly the locus of the public sphere?The public cannot be subsumed under the operation of the state nor can the realm ofthe public and public opinion be premised in the operation of the mass media whichis in general privately owned and operated for profit. The media reports and formsopinion, but it also circulates and constructs views which are particular rather thanuniversal. The notion of commodification of cultures, knowledge, and the role ofmedia and advertisement precludes the media per se to embody the locus of the public.Indeed, the media reflects, constructs and signifies a consumer culture and lifestyle.18

Moreover, the views of minorities and groups traditionally excluded culturally, are notrepresented in the political economy portrayed by the media as often, and with thefull range of deliberation that occur in community and public settings.

Three comments are in order. First, it is dangerous to assume, as Habermasdoes, that the public sphere is a mere space for deliberation. There are institutions,rules, practices and behavior that transcend discourses, and cannot be subsumed tonarratives or exchanges. Second, it will be dangerous to assume that the public spherecan be restricted to a homogenous definition of citizenship without recognising thelarge number of exclusions—based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, sexualpreference, etc., — that prevail in the practice of Realpolitik in capitalist societies andits structural-historical dynamics. Despite Marx's suggestion that the experience ofmodernity is marked by the fact that 'all that is solid melts into air,'19 there is noreason to assume that if the Habermasian formulae of constitution of public spheresand ideal speeches can be practically implemented, these practices and narratives ofexclusions, prevailing structural hierarchies and powers, and homogenising definitionsof citizenship will simply go away without a fight. Third, it is clear that the creation ofa public sphere, while distinct from the notion of the state, cannot be accomplishedwithout contributions from the democratic state. That is, a state working to enhancethe role of democracy in capitalism, while, at the same time, intervening to amelioratestructural trends of social inequality.

Taking these reservations into account, Freire's contribution becomes morerelevant to improve upon Habermas' formulation, with immense implications forcomparative education. Dialogue as away to get the conversation going, and to continuethe conversation despite rules, routines, regulations, and structures that conspire againstthe democratic conversation and the democratic discourse is one of the central claimsof the whole 'opus' of Freire. This dialogue is not simply constructed out of a scriptthat all participants in the dialogue construct freely while attempting to develop an

18. Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Potmodernism, London and Newbury Park, 1991,pp. 14-27.

19. We refer here, of course, to the analyses of Marx and modernity as discussed by Marshall Bermanin his insightful All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, New York, 1982.

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ideal speech. Any dialogue is segmented with impurities. Ideologies, private and publicinterests, behaviours, etc. affect the ability to reach consensus or even to engage indialogue or to implement some of the agreements of the dialogue. But that is a strengthrather than a limitation of liberal democracies: as long as people expect that the rule ofreason prevail and that the overall normativity and laws of the society will apply—independently of whether these rules benefit spécifie interests— democracy willfacilitate that the democratic conversation continues, perhaps with the spirit of RichardRorty of an 'edifying conversation.' Freire's dialogical model, which set the stage forrespectful and tolerant dialogue, becomes a basic pedagogic devise in the constructionof public spheres.

Freire, on the other hand, doesn't differentiate neatly politics from educationand hence he is not naively accepting that educators cannot introduce political viewsor attempt to persuade students of what they consider truthful. Yet, Freire also agreesthat there is a conflict of ideologies in the constitution of public sphere and in theconstruction of 'edifying' dialogues. Moreover, Freire lifelong quest to identify andcross borders in education challenges radically the Habermasian formulae of a publicsphere with similar citizens. Distinctions constitute identities but also constitute thelifeline of the conversation. Finally, Freire's strong class leanings will challenge anynotion of constitution of public spheres without considering the role of the state, as itwas clear in his contributions as a public administrator in charge of educational reformin the city of Säo Paulo during the administration of the Partido Dos Trabalhadores.20

The central claim of this keynote address has been to show that the seminalworks of Habermas and Freire not only are compatible and wholly complementarybut offer new and fruitful directions for comparative education. It is up to comparativeeducators working in all domains—researchers, teachers, planners, administrators,public officials, consultants—to delve into the complexity of Habermas and Freire'scontributions trying to understand the intrincancies of educational reform consideringthe formulations of critical pedagogy. Thus, a central learning from Critical Pedagogy

20. Paulo Freire and a group of cultural workers affiliated to the Socialist Democratic Partidodos Trabalhadores (PT), democratically elected in the Municipality of the City of São Paulo,presided over 691 schools, with 710,000 students and 39,614 employees (teachers,administrators, and service personnel), the latter constituting 30 per cent of the municipalityof São Paulo's total employees. They crafted and implemented an ambitious program ofeducational reform including a comprehensive curriculum reform for grades K-8; new modelsof school management through the implementation of School Councils that included teachers,principals, parents, and government officials, and the launching of a movement for LiteracyTraining (MOVA-São Paulo) built on participatory planning and delivery, in partnershipwith nongovernmental organisations and social movements. See Pilar O'Cadiz, Pia LinquistWong and Carlos Alberto Torres, Education and Democracy: Paulo Freire, Social Movements,and Educational Reform in São Paulo, Bolder, 1998.

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is to understand its claim for upholding social responsibility, justice and a politics ofcaring in facing structural and socio-psychological processes of domination and unequalsocial exchanges. At least, we should learn from the pages of Freire and Habermas thatthe need for efficient, cost-effective, and ethically appropriate actions and programsin education cannot be satisfied with simplistic thinking nor can they be elaboratedwithout embracing a politics for empowerment.

Bibliography

Alves, R., Towards a Theology of Liberation. Princeton: Ph. D. dissertation, Princeton TheologicalSeminary, 1969;Berman, M., All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, Simon and Schuster, NewYork, 1982.Burbules, N., Dialogue in Teaching. Theory and Practice, Teachers College Press-Columbia University,New York. 1993.de Kadt, E., Catholic Radicals in Brazil, Oxford University Press, New York, 1970.de Rui Beisiegel, C., Polltica e Educação Popular, Editora Atica, São Paulo, 1982.Featherstone, M., Consumer Culture and Potmodernism, Sage Publications, London and Newbury Park,1991.Fraser, N., 'Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually ExistingDemocracy.' In Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, editors, Between Borders. Pedagogy and the Politics ofCultural Studies, Routledge, New York and London, 1994.Freire, P. and Donaldo Macedo, Literacy. Reading the Word and the World, Bergin and Garvey publishers,South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1987;Gadotti, M., Concepção Dialética da Educação. Um Estudo Introdutório, Cortez Editora-Editora AutoresAssociados, São Paulo, 1986.Habermas, J., The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of BourgeoisSociety, tr. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence, The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, MA., 1989.Mainwaring, S., The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985, Stanford University Press,Stanford, 1986.Moreira Alves, M., O Cristo do Povo, Editôra Sabiá, Rio de Janeiro, 1968.Morrow, R. A. and Carlos Alberto Torres, Critical Theory and Education: Freire, Habermas and theDialogical Subject, Teachers College Press-Columbia University, New York, in press.Morrow, R. A. and Carlos Alberto Torres. Social Theory and Education: A Critique of Theories of Socialand Cultural Reproduction, SUNY Press, Albany, New York, 1995.Morrow, R. and David Brown, Social Theory and Methodology, Sage, London and Newbury Park, Ca.,1996.O'Cadiz, Piiar, Pia Linquist Wong and Carlos Alberto Torres, Education and Democracy: Paulo Freire,Social Movements, and Educational Reform in São Paulo, Westview Press, Bolder, Co., 1998.Sanders, T. G., The Paulo Freire Method: Literacy Trainingand Conscientization, American UniversitiesField Staff, Report West Coast South America, V° XV, N° 1, 1968.Shor, I. and Paulo Freire, A Pedagogy for Liberation. Dialogues on Transforming Education, Bergin andGarvey publishers, South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1987.Torres C. A., (Ed.), La Praxis Educativa de Paulo Freire, Editorial Gernika, Mexico, 1978-5th edition,1987.

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Torres C. A., (Ed.), Entrevistas con Paulo Freire, Editorial Gernika, Mexico, 1978-4th edition, 1986.Torres C. A., (Ed.), Paulo Freire en América Latina, Editorial Gernika, Mexico, 1980.Torres, C. A., Education, Power and Personal Biography. Dialogues with Critical Educators, Routledge,New York, 1998.Torres, C. A., and Adriana Puiggrós, 'The State and Public Education in Latin America,' in CarlosAlberto Torres and Adriana Puiggrós (editors) Latin American Education: Comparative Perspectives,Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1997.Torres, C. A., Education, Democracy and Multiculturalism: Dilemmas of Citizenship in a Global World,Rowman and Littlefield, Lahnman, Maryland, 1998.Torres, C. A., Introduction to Paulo Freire on Higher Education. A Dialogue at the National University ofMexico, Edited by Miguel Escobar, Alfredo L. Fernández, and Gilberto Guevara-Niebla with PauloFreire, SUNY, Albany, New York, 1994Torres, C. A., Paulo Freire: Educación y Concientización, Sigueme Publishers, Salamanca, Spain, 1980.Torres, C. A., The Church, Religion and Hegemony in Latin America. Argentina in Comparative Perspective,Praeger, New York, 1992.Torres, C. A., The Politics of Nonformal Education in Latin America, Praeger, New York, 1990.

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paulo freire, jürgen habermas, and critical pedagogy: implications for comparative education∗

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