Freire's Conscientization, Dialogue, And Liberation: Personal Reflections on Classroom Discussions of Marginality

Using Freire's notions of conscientization, dialogue, and liberation, the author reflects on how he has engaged a student-centered dialogue in his teaching in general and in discussions of sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, and transphobia in particular. More specifically, he examines how this dialogic process enables his students and himself to (re)discover ways in which they can liberate themselves by exposing normalizing discourses and dominant ideologies, examining the relationship between oppressor and oppressed, shifting from object to subject positions, and (re)negotiating power relations.     

Psychosocial community work as an alternative mode of political action (The construction and critical transformation of society)

From its start, community social psychology (CSP) has been oriented to produce changes in social actors enabling them to develop their capacities, to empower them so that they are able to obtain and produce new resources and effect transformations in their environment as well as being in control of their own actions and decisions. This has led to a redefinition of power in the sense of assuming that asymmetry does not mean absolute lack of resources. As understood in Latin America, CSP configures a mode of knowledge production that could be considered as belonging to a construction and critical transformation paradigm, which assumes that society is a collective construction effected by persons who consider that their life circumstances must be transformed, and about which they have developed a critical perspective. Applying participatory action-research, psychosocial community work (PCW) merges ordinary knowledge and scientific knowledge, producing a third form of knowledge that enriches both and which, through reflexivity, engenders new transforming actions. This paper shows some of the main characteristics of PCW, and its orientation towards social and individual change, incorporating the participation of the community, and highlighting its political character. It is concluded that PCW is basically a form of political psychology, in so far as it is concerned with the public field, that it develops from social needs and conflicts and that it attacks or palliates the distorting and concealing effects of ideology, through the conscientization processes.     

Encounters between the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘oppressor’: rethinking Paulo Freire in anti-racist feminist education in Sweden

With the aim of rethinking Paulo Freire’s theory and its practices in race/ethnicity and education, this article uses intersectionality to deepen our understanding of differences among the oppressed and break the opposition between the oppressed and oppressor. Based on an ethnographic study carried out at a feminist adult educational institution in Sweden, the author examines the positionality of migrant students and feminist teachers and how they react to othering in the educational process and in Swedish society. The author also argues for the importance of intersectionality as a way to help both the conscientization of the oppressed and the radical task of the liberatory teachers. It is crucial to untangle gendered and sexualized racism, especially in specific contexts where race and gender intersect to construct a binary between a ‘superior us’ and a ‘barbaric Other.’ Conscientization and intersectionality are particularly useful for probing the complicated processes of othering and combating different forms of oppression and racism in an era of globalization in Western countries.     

Developing Diversity Competence in Child Welfare and Permanency Planning

ABSTRACT

The vision of the pluralistic society of the 1960s relied on the recognition of differences rather than on assimilation. Pluralism held that finally, in America, minorities did not need to melt and adopt the norms of the majority. But the cultural pluralistic perspective has been strongly questioned since the 1990s. Concerns have been raised about whether the alteration of power relations in the United States can be achieved civilly. This article examines the value of long-held assumptions about the common core and explores the desirability of building on it for the next millennium. It moves beyond traditional perspectives of the common core and proposes the notion of a transcul-tural citizen who might be able to move with ease between cultures, whether within the confines of the United States or on a more global level. Illustrations from the United States and abroad are given. Lessons for social work in Europe and America are drawn.     

Survivors of Woman Abuse

Abstract

The feminist social work and related literature on abused women has focused on women's processes of empowerment but has overlooked the question of women's movement from individual survival to collective resistance. In this feminist qualitative study, I explore the processes through which survivors of abuse by male partners become involved in collective action for social change. Using story telling as a research method, I interviewed 11 women about the processes, factors, insights, and events that prompted them to act collectively to address violence against women. I found that women's movement from individual survival to collective action entails significant changes in consciousness and subjectivity. Women's processes of conscientization are complex, contradictory and often painful because they involve political and psychic dimensions of subjectivity, protracted struggles with contradictions and conflict, and resistance to knowledge that threatens to unsettle relatively stable notions of identity. I suggest that feminist social work theory and practice must take into account three interrelated elements of women's transformative journeys: the discursive and material conditions that facilitate women's movement to collective action; the social, material and psychic costs of women's growth; and the multifaceted and difficult nature of women's journey in recognizing and naming abuse, making sense of their experiences, and acting on this knowledge to work for change. I recommend that feminist social work practice with survivors recognize that survivors can and do contribute to social change, and develop new, more inclusive liberatory models of working with survivors of abuse.     

贫困乡村社区革新定位的扫盲教育:P.弗莱雷人类学模式

P.弗莱雷扫盲模式的理论基础即行动性教育人类学,包括批判性的文化人类学和解放被压迫者教育学,其实践运用即"弗莱雷方法",这一教育人类学模式值得我们合理地借鉴。针对我国乡村扫盲教育较普遍存在与当地社会和个人发展未能密切结合的现象,不难发现当地文化主体的自觉、民众意识的提升、经验的运用等策略,对乡村扫盲实践和研究革新的意义。     

Paulo Freire: Neglected Mentor for Social Work

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and author, advocated radical educational approaches to empower oppressed peoples. Social workers contributing to English-language journals and other literature have made only limited use of Freire's ideas. Explanations may include social work's clinical drift, discomfort with radical ideas, obliviousness to contributions from the developing world, unease with religious thought, and avoidance of primary sources, in addition to the complexity of Freire's writing style. This article introduces Freire's contributions and suggests consistent approaches in social work practice, past and present, illustrating that those who practice with marginalized and disempowered people can benefit from reading Freire as a mentor.