& Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2010 All rights reserved.

For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org doi:10.1093/cdj/bsq022 Advance Access publication 20 May 2010

Popular education and social change in Latin America

Oscar Jara H. *

Abstract

This article identies the shortcomings of the dominant approach to education around the globe today, which does not lead to equitable development. Latin American thinkers point to an alternative perspective based on solidarity, inclusion and humanity. Such a perspective puts social change at the heart of education and is evident in what is known as Popular Education. Jara denes and analyses these complex terms, and provides an historical overview of the development of popular education in Latin America since 1960. He notes the key factors: popular education is substantively political, and it is underpinned by a liberating pedagogy which is possible in both formal as well as informal education, and which builds peoples capacities to question their reality and existing ideologies, and to learn and unlearn continuously.

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Introduction
Liberating education does not produce social change by itself. . . but there will not be social change without a liberating education Paulo Freire.1

In the last 50 years, Latin American countries have experienced constant changes in the conceptualizations and strategies that underpin their educational systems. These changes have sought to instil the idea that education and knowledge are essential factors for development. However, this has not caused signicant improvements for Latin American people (Rivero, 1999). Since the 1980s, neo-liberal reforms that were imposed by international nancial organizations exacerbated old problems, causing a ssure in the structures of education, which deepened educational inequality.

*Address for correspondence: Oscar Jara H, email: oscar.jara@alforja.or.cr 1 Interview with Paolo Freire, Buenos Aires, 1985. Community Development Journal Vol 45 No 3 July 2010 pp. 287296

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The Latin American experience asks us to reect on what should be the main objectives and goals of education and what kind of knowledge and skills are necessary to face the issues, challenges and new situations emerging at the local, national and global level? What is the place of education within these changing contexts? Today, more than ever, we need to rethink our view of education and deepen our knowledge of the substantive factors that can constitute an alternative approach to education. Efforts towards social transformation need to be underpinned by the philosophical, political and pedagogical foundation of an educational paradigm. We need to develop a comprehensive education which can contribute to the construction of new social structures and new relationships between people based on justice, equality, solidarity and respect for the environment. An epistemological rupture is required and a political afrmation that opts for people as the subject as Jose Luis Rebellato, a Uruguayan philosopher expressed it, able to build history as a possibility [. . .] because [men and women] are not simply objects of history but also its subjects (Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator). In the current context, the ethics of solidarity and the possibility of a new world only make sense and becomes feasible if they emerge from those excluded people, who could take on the universal responsibility orientated not to the survival of the species but to achieving a truly human life, radicalising democracy in the global society (Alfonso Ibanez, Peruvian philosopher). In this new millennium, the relationship between education and social change and the importance of coherent, ethical political and pedagogical action are not only topics for analysis and study but also a decisive theoretical practical challenge that calls for our action. Thus, we need to be able to answer the question, taking into account our own context and challenges, what kind of education do we need for what kind of social change?

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Education and social change

The concept of social change has been studied and dened by many different disciplines. It can be considered as a multidimensional notion, a process of multiple forces in movement. There is a consensus around the idea that social change cannot be produced by only one factor or phenomenon. Different denitions concur that society is a system of multiple and diverse relationships, thus social change refers to the modication of such relationships. These denitions are different to each other primarily because of the kind of modications that they focus on. For example, Giddens refers to changes in the underlying structure [. . .] over a period of time in order to argue that in the case of human societies, in order to decide to what extent and how a system is changing, modications of basic

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institutions in a specic period of time have to be manifest (Giddens, 1984, p. 68). Giddens posits that although no mono-causal statement can explain the nature and diversity of social change throughout the history of humanity, it is possible to identify the factors that have persistently impacted on social change: the physical world, political organization and cultural factors (ibid.). The interrelationship between the different factors is crucial, as their role and signicance in the structural modication of relationships of the social system can have different characteristics in different periods. It can be argued that changes that are taking place in the current world make all cultures and societies more interdependent that ever (ibid, p. 80). There are three different aspects to the levels and types of change. The rst is the concept of social change as a change in society (a partial modication of relationships within a social structure or system) or, more radically, a change of society (a mutation that leads to building a new system that is different from the previous one), in which case the notion is closer to social transformation or even social revolution. This differentiation is a complex one which is at the core of political theory and has caused innumerable debates and ruptures within social and political movements in Latin America. The second is the multiplicity of social changes which take place thanks to the combination of different dynamics and movements in the elements of the system. It also refers to social changes that are caused intentionally by actors, subjects and agents who drive various modications. Therefore, in this sense, every social system is in constant ux. The third aspect deals with the scope of such changes and their interrelated effects: changes at individual, group and social level; changes at microsocial and macrosocial level. This too is complex as there is strong interdependence between these levels as well as different ideas about the direction of social change. Finally, we should remember the meaning and value assigned to social change: there is a stereotypical view in capitalism in which everything is identied with development or progress. Therefore, we are thought to be living increasingly advanced phases of our societies. However, from a critical perspective, technological discoveries and scientic innovation, the acceleration and impact of the new media on our lives and the globalization of our relationships, appear to be contributing to the weakening of the humanity in social relationships and the erosion of the quality of life. The current crisis of the capitalist system shows this in all its naked glory. Although some have said that the current nancial crisis is temporary, it is increasingly evident that we are living in a global crisis of the system, which is expressed in economic, environmental, energy, food and moral crises. Consequently, marked by these contemporary dilemmas and the theoretical challenges they pose, we revisit the question of the place of education in

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these changing times. Clearly, there are two conicting perspectives. The rst one argues that we need an education that adapts itself to this changing world. This is the proposal of international nancial organizations, the dominant neo-liberal discourse, the paradigm of instrumental rationality, from which education is seen as another commodity that should contribute to the qualication of resources of human capital so that societies successfully face the challenges of competition and innovation. On the other hand, the second view argues that we need an education that contributes to changing the world, making it more humane. This perspective seeks to educate people as agents of change with the capacity to inuence economic, political, social and cultural relationships as subjects of transformation. This is the perspective of ethical and emancipating rationality.

Popular education
This second perspective includes the search for a Latin American popular education. Popular in this context is understood in accordance with the work of sociologist Gallardo (2006). On the one hand, it is based on the concept of social people (social sectors that suffer a multitude of asymmetries, oppression, exclusion, exploitation etc.); and, on the other hand, based on the concept of political people (any sector that struggles to eliminate such asymmetries). Therefore, popular education refers to those politicalpedagogical processes that seek to overcome relationships of domination, oppression, discrimination, exploitation, inequality and exclusion. Seen from a positive point of view, it refers to all educational processes that seek to build egalitarian and fair relationships that respect diversity and equal rights amongst people. Popular education is an educational trend characterized by being a sociocultural phenomenon and an educational conception at the same time. As a socio-cultural phenomenon, popular education refers to a multitude of diverse educational practices formal and informal which share a transforming intentionality. As an educational conception, it points to the construction of a new educational paradigm which challenges the dominating capitalist model of an authoritarian education that is mainly scholarized and dissociates theory from practice. Popular education is based on ethical political principles for the construction of egalitarian and fair human relationships in different spheres of life. It is also based on a critical and creative pedagogy for the full development of cognitive, psychomotor, communication and emotional skills. It is often understood simply as a mode of education or a didactic approach based on active and participatory methods and techniques. However, thanks to its ethical political foundations, a number of pedagogic proposals, the diversity and richness of experiences, and the considerable body of
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literature that has been produced around it, it is also regarded as an educational trend, a complex and coherent theoretical practical eld that can include different modes and cover multiple levels of educational practices (community, group, formal, informal, with adults, children and youth, etc.).

Popular education in Latin America, 1960 2009

Informal adult education underwent its most signicant development in the 1960s and 1970s, thanks to the impact of the Cuban revolution. During this time, there was an extraordinary drive for adult education from the perspective of community development. Likewise, that period witnessed the emergence of the Pedagogy of Liberation as Freire originally called his proposal. The similarities and differences between these two currents continued throughout the following decades.2 In Brazil, the Movimiento de Educacion de Base (Movement for Grassroots Education) and the Centros Populares de Cultura (Popular Cultural Centres) emerged prior to the military coup of 1964. Paulo Freire formulated an educational philosophy, based on their practices, which redened the relationship between education and human beings, society and culture. Central to this philosophy was the concept of awareness of the negative effects of a banking and domesticating education, in other words the idea that education is deposited in the student rather than an outcome of an interaction between student and teacher. From this emerged the concept of a liberating pedagogy a line of thought that decisively marked future knowledge and practices of popular education.3 Garca and Juan (1980, p. 8) offers an excellent summary of this proposal positing that popular education:
shows the reality of a new paradigm in education in the region, emerging from multiple experiences amongst which informal rural experiences undoubtedly play an important role [. . .] experiences that take place in different contexts as a response to diverse dominant models of development with diverse origins and manifestations, it is clear that we can talk about a shared feeling, a shared approach to the problem of education of people [. . .] These experiences and educational programmes seek to emerge from the participants realities, from their concrete historic situation, generating their awareness of their economic and social situation [. . .] The way to proceed is normally in groups or cooperatives
2 See Brandao (1981): Los caminos cruzados: forma de pensar y realizar educacion en America Latina, which introduces the relationship between permanent education (European inuence), adult education and popular education (Latin American inuence) stating that it represents the return of education of the popular classes and education as a whole to its nature as a movement. 3 For a comprehensive reference to his life and work, see: Paulo Freire, uma Bio-bibliografa, Cortez-Unesco-Instituto Paulo Freire, Sao Paulo, 1996.

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that are organised and democratic. Personal growth is sought through the relationship with others [. . .] There is a trend towards a horizontal pedagogic relationship between the educator and the educated. The teacher is more of a guide, monitoring a process in which the group tends to have an increasing autonomy; many times promoters from the community are used. Independent learning, self-discipline, self-assessment and self-management are mentioned [. . .] Education is closely related to action [. . .] In this sense, the approach is inevitably political or has political implications in a general sense of the term [. . .] Finally, the participative nature of the programmes, the objectives and the theoretical statements lead to questioning orthodox methods of research, planning and assessment of education.

In the 1980s, these ideas spread through every corner of Latin America, linking up with the organizational processes of urban and rural social movements. National and continental coordination groups for popular education were created, and multiple events, meetings and debates took place. Some of the most prominent initiatives of this period were related to literacy and basic education, with a combination of popular education and popular organization, conceptualizations of dialectic methodology, human rights, political education, health, popular communication, civil society and the State and participatory action research. In the 1990s, changes in the global context shook social and political proposals for transformation in Latin America, leading to a time of crisis, disenchantment, abandonment, exploration and critique. It was also an interesting period of theoretical reection and debate within the eld of popular education, since the collapse of the politicalideological discourse that had characterized it since the 1970s made way for new theoretical perspectives. Gaps and contradictions became evident, and new topics emerged with a reexive approach that emphasized debate and the formulation of alternatives. The discussion about the issue of education intensied, fuelled by perspectives from the World Conference on Education for All held in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990. Thus a new attitude emerged regarding the relationship between popular education and pedagogy, public policy and formal education. Furthermore, the close linkages of new Latin American social movements to processes of popular education generated a rich range of new approaches to popular education and citizenship, gender, development, local power and the environment. The most important movements at this time, such as the Movimiento de Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra, MST (Movement of Landless Rural Workers) in Brazil, the Zapatista movement in Mexico and initiatives of municipal decentralization, participatory budgets and gender-aware budgets in many countries in Latin America were largely accompanied by processes of popular education.

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By the time of the turn of the millennium, organizations that were working towards popular education in Latin America were reecting and debating the validity of popular education in the new historical moment. This led to a call for the reformulation of popular education. Popular education initiatives sought to nd new guiding paradigms for their practices, methods and conceptual reections. In the ensuing decade, there have been many debates around the new contexts, spaces and challenges for popular education. In particular, those debates have been driven by the Latin American Council for Adult Education, the Consejo de Educacion de Adultos en America Latina (CEAAL) in its assemblies (Recife, 2004; Cochabamba, 2008), and many are documented in CEAALs magazine, La Piragua.4 These debates link practice and theory, and analyse concrete experiences, with a critical view of global challenges and using new concepts, categories and frames of interpretation. These reections are enriched thanks to the emphasis given to the need for the systematization of experiences as a resource for theorization of practices. These priorities led to the emergence of the Latin American Programme for Support to the Systematization of Experiences in CEAAL, which has developed a series of events and reections on this topic and is becoming an important virtual resource.5

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Educating to democratize power relations

The political dimension of education has been frequently mentioned in the eld of popular education, and in practice has been greatly emphasized. However, some consider that the political dimension is not a dimension of popular education, but that popular education in itself is political. Some years ago, the contradiction between the political and the pedagogical was portrayed as the differentiating factor in the debate on the conceptualization of popular education amongst popular educators in Latin America. In this regard, Freire argued that for him education is a political pedagogical process. This means that it is substantively political and adjectively pedagogical.6 Moreover, Freire helped to dispel the myth that popular education is in conict with formal education. On the basis of his experience as Secretary of Education in Sao Paulo, he explored how the logic behind a liberating popular education that generates the capacity for people to become subjects who can transform history could be put into practice in the formal
4 See www.ceaal.org La Piragua, No. 18 to 29 and especially No. 20 and 21: Debate Latinoamericano sobre Educacion Popular. 5 www.alforja.or.cr/sistem/biblio.html. 6 Taken from a conversation between Paulo Freire, Oscar Jara and Carlos Nunez at his home in Sao Paulo, in 1987.

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education system, obviously radically transforming it rather than only reforming some of its secondary aspects. Similar efforts took place during the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in 1980s, when it was stated that all new education in Nicaragua at all levels and in all forms should be popular education (Cardenal, 2008, p. 160).7 The political dimension makes reference to the power relations that connect the plural and dispersed network of human relations and which inform the possibilities of becoming social and historical subjects of transformation. Therefore, power relations are exercised in education with direct consequences for the development or inhibition of human capacities. A democratic, critical and liberating education contributes to training subjects with the skills to transform social relationships and relationships with the world. A domesticating, alienating and authoritarian education inhibits the construction of autonomous subjects (Freire, 1970, 2000).8 In sum, all forms of education, as cultural and political action, contribute to building a determined culture, a way of thinking and feeling, an intellectual and moral direction that struggles to be hegemonic, seeking to widen consensus from the ethical perspective driven by organized spaces of civil society (in the words of Gramsci) or, as it is currently phrased, of active citizenship (Pontual, 1995). Hence, it cannot avoid playing this role, even whereas it may pretend to be neutral. Ethics, politics and education in this way become an interdependent trio in which education is the dynamic, active and creative factor for subjects who are able to build, based on a utopian perspective, more human conditions for people and their environments. This is why education and its role in history go beyond teaching, learning, school systems, reasons, judgements and verbalized discourses, teachers and students, norms and rules. This is why the ethical, political and pedagogical searching of the different popular education initiatives in Latin America point towards a new educational paradigm different from the currently dominant one. In such a paradigm, men and women are instigators of change; they represent the hope for a different society; and they represent a different mode of education which enables social change to build a different world in which power relations are democratic and egalitarian at all levels.

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Conclusion
In sum, processes of popular education in Latin America today are concerned with a kind of education that allows people to become social subjects and actors
7 P Fernando Cardenal, Minister of Education, National Seminar in La Palmera, Diriamba 1985. . 8 See also Bourdieu and Passeron (1998), Apple (1982). Giroux (1995).

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with certain key capacities. Firstly, they are able to break with the ruling social order that is imposed upon them and presented as the only historical possibility (i.e. the model of neo-liberal globalization). Secondly, they are able to question existing ideological and ethical stereotypes and patterns which are presented as absolute truths (e.g. individualism, competition, the market as the regulator of human relations). Thirdly, people are able to continuously learn and unlearn. Popular education gives them ownership of a capacity to think. Fourthly, people are able to imagine and create new spaces and relations between human beings at home, in their communities, jobs, countries and regions, and have the capacity to generate a vital sympathetic disposition towards the social and environmental surroundings as a daily afrmation. Finally, such an education enables people to afrm themselves as autonomous people, not self-centred but able to overcome the antagonism between the other and the self, and to develop their rational, emotional and spiritual potential as men and women. This also requires overcoming a patriarchal and misogynistic socialization of gender and building new power relations in their everyday lives and in the system of social, political and cultural relations. All this active searching for alternative constructions is carried out in very different spaces and modes: through leadership training; community organization; programmes of citizen participation at the municipal, regional or national level; primary and secondary schools; technical institutions and universities; programmes to encourage the role of women; projects of social economy; programmes that promote youth and adult literacy; political training; promotion of pedagogical innovations; teacher training; encouraging the role of indigenous populations; participatory communication using traditional media and new technologies; distance learning; and projects to train educators on national and international networks, amongst others. As each era presents its particular challenges for social transformation, Popular education in Latin America meets these challenges by critically transforming itself. It is always under construction.

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Supplementary material
A Spanish translation of this article is available as supplementary material at CDJ online.

Oscar Jara H. is a Sociologist and Popular Educator. Born in Peru, lives In Costa Rica and since 1980 has worked in several Latin American Popular and Community Education programs. He also works as Director of Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones Alforja (a Costarican NGO) and Coordinator of the Latin American Program of Systematization of Experiences of the Latin American Adult Education Council, CEAAL (oscar.jara@cepalforja.org).

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