Often translated as “critical consciousness,” conscientização is the process through which a person learns about the social and political contradictions of his/her life, and takes action to challenge them. Freire argues that conscientização is a necessary step for people to achieve freedom, and therefore it’s an important goal of his educational model.
Conscientização Quotes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed quotes below are all either spoken by Conscientização or refer to Conscientização. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor. No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why?
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4
Quotes
The role of revolutionary leadership…is to consider seriously, even as they act, the reasons for any attitude of mistrust on the part of the people, and to seek out true avenues of communion with them, ways of helping the people to help themselves critically perceive the reality which oppresses them.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Pedagogy of the Oppressed LitChart as a printable PDF.
Conscientização Term Timeline in Pedagogy of the Oppressed
The timeline below shows where the term Conscientização appears in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Preface
...expands on one of those observations, that many of his students initially fear critical consciousness (conscientização) as dangerous or “anarchic”—a viewpoint that comes from an internalized “fear of freedom” and the...
(full context)
Freire argues that conscientização is not “destructive”—it helps people strive for self-affirmation and allows them to affect history in...
(full context)
Chapter 2
...wait for this to happen—they should work with oppressed people, as fellow students, to achieve conscientização together. “Banking” education hinders this process through its assumptions about human beings and the world....
(full context)
Chapter 3
...process through which educators can make “themes” more visible to their students as they approach conscientização. Decoding consists of presenting a classroom with a “coded situation”—or a worldly condition that reflects...
(full context)
