Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Marxist 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 foundational texts of the critical pedagogy movement, and was the third most cited book in the social sciences as of 2016 according to Google Scholar.
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture.
The UCLA School of Education and Information Studies is one of the academic and professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. Located in Los Angeles, California, the school combines two departments. Established in 1881, the school is the oldest unit at UCLA, having been founded as a normal school prior to the establishment of the university. It was incorporated into the University of California in 1919.
Comparative education is a discipline in the social sciences which entails the scrutiny and evaluation of different educational systems, such as those in various countries. Professionals in this area of endeavor are absorbed in advancing evocative terminologies and guidelines for education worldwide, enhancing educational structures and producing a context to which the success and effectivity of education programs and initiatives can be assessed.
Peter McLaren is a Canadian-American scholar and Emeritus Professor of Urban Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, having taught at UCLA from 1993 until 2013. Prior to that, he taught at Miami University of Ohio (1985-1993). Most recently, he served as a Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies at Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University (2013-2023) until his retirement, where he was Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice. He is the Honorary Director of the Center for Critical Studies in Education at Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China. According to Stanford University's database, McLaren belongs to the top 2% of the world’s most influential scientists.
Peter Evans is an American political sociologist who is Faculty Fellow in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and Professor of Sociology emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
Juha Suoranta is a Finnish social scientist, and public intellectual. He is currently professor in adult education at the University of Tampere. Previously he worked as professor of education at the University of Lapland (1997–2004), and Professor of Adult Education at the University of Joensuu (2004–2006). He is also adjunct professor in music education at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and in media education at the University of Tampere. In sum he has published 38 books and umpteen scientific articles.
Critical consciousness, conscientization, or conscientização in Portuguese, is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in neo-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.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, written in Portuguese between 1967 and 1968, but published first in Spanish in 1968. An English translation was published in 1970, with the Portuguese original being published in 1972 in Portugal, and then again in Brazil in 1974. The book is considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy, and proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student, and society.
Luiz Alberto de Vianna Moniz Bandeira was a Brazilian writer, professor, political scientist, historian and poet.
Simon Schwartzman is a Brazilian social scientist. He has published extensively, with many books, book chapters and academic articles in the areas of comparative politics, sociology of science, social policy, and education, with emphasis on Brazil and Latin America. He was the President of the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and is a retired professor from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. He is member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, holder of the Grand Cross of the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit (1996). He is currently associate researcher at the Institute for Studies in Economic Policy Instituto de Estudos de Política Econômica / Casa das Garças - Rio de Janeiro.
Joe Lyons Kincheloe was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal and founder of The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban studies, cognition, curriculum, and cultural studies. Kincheloe received three graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee. The father of four children, he worked closely for the last 19 years of his life with his partner, Shirley R. Steinberg.
Peter Mayo is a professor, speaker, editor, writer, and former head of the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education at the University of Malta, in Malta. He is responsible for the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education at the same university. He formerly served as the university's head of the Department of Education Studies from 2008 to 2012. Mayo was a member of the Collegio Docenti for the doctoral research programme in Educational Sciences and Continuing Education at the Università degli Studi di Verona. He teaches in the areas of sociology of education and adult continuing education, as well as in comparative and international education and sociology in general. He was previously employed as a school teacher and later as Officer in Charge of Adult Education in the then Department of Education, Ministry of Education, Malta. Mayo has held visiting professorial appointments at multiple universities and was a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University College London during 2014. He was previously a member of the Collegio Docenti for the international doctorate in intercultural sociology and education at the University of Messina and was the President of the Mediterranean Society of Comparative Education (MESCE) from 2008 to 2010. He was visiting professor at the Institute of Education, University College London
Ramón Flecha is a Spanish sociologist who is a professor of sociology at the University of Barcelona, Doctor Honoris Causa from West University of Timişoara, and a researcher in social sciences in Europe. Alain Touraine highlighted the contribution of Flecha in recognizing the knowledge of cultural analysis of people without studies:
At times, as Ramón Flecha demonstrates, knowledge goes from bottom to top, when individuals without degrees produce and invent cultural analyses based on their own experience.
Ali A. Abdi is a Somali-Canadian sociologist and educationist. Currently, he is a professor of social development education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he previously served as head of department. Before that, he was a professor of International Education and International Development at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he also served as the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER). He is past president of the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada (CIESC). In addition, he is the founding editor/co-editor of the peer-reviewed online publications Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education and Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry.
Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psychoanalysis, or existentialism. Neo-Marxism comes under the broader framework of the New Left. In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Max Weber's broader understanding of social inequality, such as status and power, to Marxist philosophy.
Ronald H. Chilcote is a political economist from the United States. He is currently the Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Riverside, and has served as managing editor of the academic journal Latin American Perspectives since its founding in 1974. Chilcote's main area of research is on Brazil, Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies in Africa, as well as comparative politics, political economy and development theory.
Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira is a Brazilian economist and social scientist. He teaches at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo. Since 1981, he has been the editor of the Brazilian Journal of Political Economy.
Paulo Freire and the Cold War Politics of Literacy is a book by historian Andrew J. Kirkendall published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010. It discusses the involvement of Brazilian educator and critical pedagogy philosopher Paulo Freire (1921-1997) in literacy programs in Latin American during the Cold War, and analyzes the effect of politics on literacy programs. The book also details Freire's work with organizations such as the World Council of Churches and the spread of his ideas.
Pedro Noguera is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is recognized as a leading scholar of urban public education, equity, and school reform.
