Popular education

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Popular education is a concept grounded in notions of class, political struggle, and social transformation. The term is a translation from the Spanish educación popular [es] or the Portuguese educação popular [pt] and rather than the English usage as when describing a 'popular television programme', popular here means 'of the people'. More specifically 'popular' refers to the 'popular classes', which include peasants, the unemployed, the working class and sometimes the lower middle class. The designation of 'popular' is meant most of all to exclude the upper class and upper middle class.

Popular education is used to classify a wide array of educational endeavours and has been a strong tradition in Latin America since the end of the first half of the 20th century. These endeavors are either composed of or carried out in the interests of the popular classes. The diversity of projects and endeavors claiming or receiving the label of popular education makes the term difficult to precisely define. Generally, one can say that popular education is class-based in nature and rejects the notion of education as transmission or 'banking education'. It stresses a dialectic or dialogical model between educator and educand. This model is explored in great detail in the works of one of the foremost popular educators Paulo Freire.

Though sharing many similarities with other forms of alternative education, popular education is a distinct form in its own right. In the words of Liam Kane: "What distinguishes popular education from '

non-formal', 'distance', or 'permanent education', for example, is that in the context of social injustice, education can never be politically neutral: if it does not side with the poorest and marginalised sectors- the 'oppressed' – in an attempt to transform society, then it necessarily sides with the 'oppressors' in maintaining the existing structures of oppression, even if by default."[1]

Europe

Popular education began at the crossroads between politics and

Was Ist Aufklärung? (What is Enlightenment?), published five years before the 1789 French Revolution, during which the Condorcet report
established public instruction in France.

laïcité, if not anti-clerical
, ideas.

Popular education may be defined as an educational technique designed to raise the consciousness of its participants and allow them to become more aware of how an individual's personal experiences are connected to larger societal problems. Participants are empowered to act to effect change on the problems that affect them.

19th century

One of the roots of popular education was the

anarcho-syndicalist movement, strong in France, Spain and Italy. It was one of the important theme treated during the 1907 International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam
.

France

During the

Bourses du travail
centres, where workers gathered and discussed politics and sciences.

The Jules Ferry laws in the 1880s, establishing free, laic (non-religious), mandatory and public education, were one of the founding stones of the Third Republic (1871–1940), set up in the aftermaths of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune.

Furthermore, most of the teachers, who were throughout one of the main support of the Third Republic, so much that it has been called the République des instituteurs ("Republic of Teachers"), while the teachers themselves were called, because of their

Dreyfus Affair. One of its consequences was for them to set up free educational lectures of humanist topics for adults in order to struggle against the spread of antisemitism
, which was not limited to the far-right but also affected the workers' movement.

Escuela Moderna
in Spain. Robin taught atheism and internationalism, and broke new ground with co-ed schooling, and teaching orphans with the same respect given to other children. He taught that the individual should develop in harmony with the world, on the physical, moral, and intellectual planes.

Scandinavia

In Denmark, the concept of folk high school was pioneered in 1844 by N. F. S. Grundtvig. By 1870, Denmark had 50 of these institutions. The first in Sweden, Folkhögskolan Hvilan, was established in 1868 outside of Lund.

In 1882, liberal and socialist students at Uppsala University in Sweden founded the association Verdandi for popular education. Between 1888 and 1954 it published 531 educational booklets on various topics (Verdandis småskrifter).

Some Swedish proponents of folkbildning have adopted an anglicisation of folkbuilding[2]

A Swedish bibliography on popular education with 25,000 references to books and articles between 1850 and 1950 is integrated in the Libris catalog of the Royal Library.[3]

20th century

Popular education continued to be an important field of socialist politics, reemerging in particular during the

May '68
revolt.

Austria

During the

Viktor Kraft.[4]

The Escuela Moderna (1901–1907)

The

Università popolare
, founded in 1901.

France

List of lectures, Université populaire – town of Villeurbanne – 1936.

Following the

anti-psychiatric movement (of which Félix Guattari was an important member). Since 2005, the LAP has maintained contact with self-managed firms, in the REPAS network (Réseau d'échanges de pratiques alternatives et solidaires, Network of Exchange of Solidarity and Alternative Practices")[8]

A second generation for such folk high school meant to educate the people and the masses spread in the society (mainly for workers) just before the

proletarians interested in politics. Hence, some received the name of Université prolétarienne (Proletarian University) instead of Université populaire (Popular University)[9] in some cities around the country. The reactionary Vichy regime put an end to such projects during World War II. The second generation continued in the post-war period, yet topical lectures turned to be more practical and focused on daily life matters. Nowadays, the largest remnant is located in the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin départements.[10]

Following World War II, popular teaching attempts were initiated mainly by the anarchist movement. Already in 1943, Joffre Dumazedier, Benigno Cacérès, Paul Lengrand, Joseph Rovan and others founded the Peuple et Culture (People and Culture) network, aimed at democratization of culture. Joffre Dumazedier conceptualized, at the Liberation, the concept of "cultural development" to oppose the concept of "economic development", thus foreshadowing the current Human Development Index. Historian Jean Maitron, for example, was director of the Apremont school in Vendée from 1950 to 1955.

Such popular educations were also a major feature of

Sorbonne
, where courses tend to be more conservative and sociological composition more middle-upper class.

Another attempt in popular education, specifically targeted towards the question of philosophy (France being one of the rare country where this discipline is taught in terminale, the last year of high school which culminate in the baccalauréat degree) was the creation, in 1983, of the open university named

Olivier LeCour Grandmaison, Antonio Negri
, and others. The Ciph is still active.

In 2002 philosopher

history of ideas to eliminate any Christian influence. Despite the same name of Université populaire, it is not linked to the European federation of associations inherited from the second generation. In 2004, Onfray expanded the experience[13] to other cities such as Arras, Lyon, Narbonne, Avignon, and Mons (in Belgium); each with various lectures and teachers joining his idea. The Universités populaires in Argentan is meant to deliver a culture of culinary tastes to nonworking people, through lectures and practises of famous chefs.[14]

Latin America

Popular education is most commonly understood as an approach to education that emerged in Latin America during the 1930s. Closely linked with Marxism and particularly liberation theology. Best known amongst popular educators is the Brazilian Paulo Freire. Freire, and consequently the popular education movement in Latin America, draws heavily upon the work of John Dewey and Antonio Gramsci. One of the features of popular education in Latin America has been participatory action research (PAR).

1940s–1960s

1970s–1980s

1990s–present

Africa

Portuguese colonies

Anglophone colonies

Anne Hope and Sally Timmel were Christian development workers and educators who used popular education in their work in East Africa. They documented their work between 1973 and 1984 in four handbooks designed to aid practitioners titled "Training for Transformation."


North America

In the United States and Canada popular education influenced social justice education and critical pedagogy, though there are differences. At the same time, however, there are examples of popular education in the U.S. and Canada that grew up alongside and independently of popular education in Latin America.

United States

Scholar and community-worker

cooperative extension programs
.

Highlander Folk School, for example, played a significant role in the civil rights movement
providing a space for leaders to consult and plan. And the methods of popular education continue to live on in radical education and community organizing circles, even though U.S. labor unions have largely abandoned the kind of labor education that more directly tied workplace organizing and collective bargaining to class struggle.

Canada

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Popular education.

References

  1. ISBN 1-899365-52-4
    .
  2. ^ Hektor, S (2005) "A 'Folkbildning' Approach in Media Training" Archived March 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine in Journal of the International Communication Training Institute.
  3. ^ SFbB, Svensk folkbildningsbibliografi (1850–1950).
  4. ^ Dvorak, Johann (1991). "Otto Neurath and Adult Education: Unity of Science, Materialism and Comprehensive Enlightenment". In Uebel, Thomas (ed.). Rediscovering the Forgotten Vienna Circle: Austrian Studies on Otto Neurath and the Vienna Circle. Dordrecht: Kulwer Academic Publishers. pp. 265–274.
  5. ^ a b Geoffrey C. Fidler, The Escuela Moderna Movement of Francisco Ferrer: "Por la Verdad y la Justicia" in History of Education Quarterly, vol.25, issue 1/2, Spring-Summer 1985, pages 103–132 (in English)
  6. ISBN 1-904859-09-7
    .
  7. ^ "Lycée Autogéré de Paris - L'autogestion comme solution". www.l-a-p.org. Archived from the original on March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  8. ^ repas (January 30, 2013). "Présentation du Réseau REPAS". www.reseaurepas.free.fr. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  9. ^ Fr: Education populaire
  10. ^ Von Treitschke, H. (1915). Germany, France, Russia, & Islam. London, Jarrold.
  11. ^ French WP article: Université populaire de Caen
  12. ^ A recorded compilation of his lectures on CD became a hit in France, about 200 000 copies sold: Contre-histoire de la philosophie. Synopsis
  13. ^ He also published [a book][citation needed] as a manifesto to describe his hopes about it: La communauté philosophique.
  14. ^ The first lecture at Argentan was delivered by the main chef of Crillon motel; Onfray commented on radio he liked to enable such extravagant encounters.[citation needed]

Further reading

  • Hope, Anne; Timmel, Sally (1984). Training for transformation : a handbook for community workers. Gweru: Mambo Press.
    OCLC 13329206
    .

External links
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