A participatory approach with a Freirean perspective

The participatory approach emerged as reaction to the precepts of the modernization paradigm. Advocates argue that the DOI model presents an ethnocentric and paternalistic view of

development (Freire, 2000; Kahn & Kellner, 2007; Mazzer Barroso, 2002). This school of theorists and researchers has criticized traditional approaches that develop in large cities without the involvement and guidance of local people. For example, in their book “Communication for another Development: Listening Before Telling,” Quarry and Ramirez (2009) defined

communication as a participatory two-way process between people or groups with an

understanding of the context and the people as the highest priority (p. 14). A sound definition of communication is a condition for a sensitive participatory model of development.

Within the participatory approach, interventions are perceived as useless unless they are modified and tailored by the very community in which they will be implemented (Fraser & Restrepo-Estrada, 1998). In other words, the community must possess ownership over the system that is being introduced. The biggest problem with the top-down approach of modernization theory is the paternalistic position that governmental and developmental agencies take with regard to marginalized communities. They perceive the targeted communities as ignorant and unable to think for themselves, dependent upon help that must proceed from the outside “civilized world.” Without a sense of ownership, these marginalized communities struggle to implement any innovations. Even more problematic are situations in which there is a generalized perception of a forced intervention of foreign experts into the community, when this struggle can become an active resistance. In order to foster a sense of community ownership that feeds into a successful adoption of innovation, people should be encouraged rather than forced.

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian national and considered one of the most influential educators of the twentieth century (Taylor, 1993). His ideas exceeded the scope of the field of education and merge with broader social movements which seek to use participatory modes of

researchers working among a variety of marginalized Latino and African-American communities in the U.S. (Cummins et al., 2005; Darder, 2012; Urrieta, 2004; Warschauer 2004; Wortham et al., 2002). Since the first edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1970, Freire has criticized the “banking” conception of education, in which the student is seen as an empty vessel ready to be filled with knowledge or formal education (Freire, 2000). He has used the metaphor of a piggy bank to illustrate his point: the educator invests knowledge in the student’s mind, this being entirely a one-way process. The power dynamic is fixed and the teacher or educator plays a very active/authoritarian role in the learning process while the student is a passive actor; education is seen as a donation from those who know to those who do not. Two different levels are

established in this model: superior and inferior. Who, then, has the right to educate? The banking concept does not inspire motivation, creativity, or a critical mind. It is the pedagogy of the oppressor, one based on bourgeois ideals. The only way to achieve freedom is through the liberation of education through critical consciousness and active dialogue.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed is based on two main concepts: conscientization and dialogue. In Freire’s original Portuguese, conscientizacao was defined as the process of developing the kind of consciousness able to transform reality (Taylor, 1993). According to Freire (2000), “conscientizacao” requires learning to identify social, political, and economic features of social reality and learning to take action against oppressive powers. The oppressed will start questioning his or her reality and then will attempt to change it. In other words, Freire (2000) tries to change the passive role of the oppressed into a more active and critical one. Literacy, according to Freire (2000) requires more than the capacity to read and write; critical consciousness must come first in order to trigger a personal motivation. Only through critical consciousness can the oppressed begin his or her liberation cycle. This goal can only be achieved

through active dialogue and a critical pedagogy. Education cannot be imposed from above; on the contrary, education must encourage the learner’s experience by incorporating his or her background and linguistic tools into the learning process.

The participatory approach encourages the participation and critical thinking of the community in every stage of the development process (planning decision-making,

implementation, and evaluation); by participating, communities increase their level of ownership and consequently their empowerment. Empowerment, under the participatory approach, can generally be understood as the process of giving marginalized people basic opportunities— whether social, political, or psychological—to redistribute power within their social reality (Friedmann, 1996; Mazzer Barroso, 2002). Freire’s concepts have contributed to a clearer understanding of the processes of social change and education in the U.S., especially among Latino communities. Liberating education, (i.e., education seen as acts of cognition rather than the merely transfer of knowledge) has the capacity to empower people and give them the chance to become producers of their own future. This kind of theoretical foundation is necessary for educational research in minority communities because it gives a voice to the unheard and aims to reconfigure the dynamics of power.

But Freire’s (2000) pedagogy of the oppressed has its shortcomings. Most notably it has been criticized as tending to universalize oppression, leaving aside issues of culture, ethnicity, language, race, and especially gender (Freire, Freire, & Macedo, 1998). In an interview conducted by Macedo, Freire was asked why he had not addressed the issue of gender; in his critique, Macedo explained that being an oppressed black man is different than being an

oppressed black woman, who is oppressed at the same time by the black male. Freire responded that although he completely understood the critique, his main concern when writing the book had

been social and class inequality rather than gender inequality. According to the Brazilian author, men and women should confront their oppression both individually and together in order to develop more effective strategies for combating it (Freire et al., 1998).