Table of Contents and Summaries

Foreword by Richard Shaull

Preface

Chapter 1

The justification for a pedagogy of the oppressed; the contradiction between the oppressors and the oppressed, and how it is overcome; oppression and the oppressors; oppression and the oppressed; liberation: not a gift, not a self-achievement, but a mutual process.

Chapter 2

The “banking” concept of education as an instrument of oppression—its presuppositions—a critique; the problem-posing concept of education as an instrument for liberation—its presuppositions; the “banking” concept and the teacher-student contradiction; the problem-posting concept and the supersedence of the teacher-student contradiction; education: a mutual process, world-mediated; people as uncompleted beings, conscious of their incompletion, and their attempt to be more fully human.

Chapter 3

Dialogics—the essence of education as the practice of freedom; dialogics and dialogue; dialogue and the search for program content; the human-world relationship, “generative themes,” and the program content of education as the practice of freedom; the investigation of “generative themes” and its methodology; the awakening of critical consciousness through investigation of “generative themes”; the various stages of the investigation.

Chapter 4

Antidialogics and dialogics as matrices of opposing theories of cultural action: the former as an instrument of oppression and the latter as an instrument of liberation; the theory of antidialogical action and its characteristics: conquest, divide and rule, manipulation, and cultural invasion; the theory of dialogical action and its characteristics: cooperation, unity, organization, and cultural synthesis.

A Note from History Is A Weapon

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