Introduction: Transformative Learning in the Age of Neoliberalism

Abstract

Development education has been occupying an increasingly important and enlarged space within tormal and informal education over thepast 50 years as a ladical pedagogy rooted in the global South with the capacity for self- and communal transformation. It represents the enduring capacity of education to raise the learner beyond his or her physical environment, extend their imagination to new horizons, attain new forms of cultural expression, overcome societal inequalities and embrace humanisation above the ‘otherness’ of materialism. This concept of education as a means of empowerment and justice is largely drawn from the work of the radical educator, philosopher, activist and writer Paulo Freirc and was moulded in literacy programmes with poor campesmos in his native Brazil in the 1960s. He succeeded in relating the individual’s process of conscientisation through problem posing education and critical thinking to that of wider society’s struggle for social justice. Thus, just as the learner could become liberated by an awakening of critical consciousness so could society become liberated from the shackles of oppression. This was a truly revolutionary vision of education that resonated throughout Latin America and directly informed the practice of educators m the global North.