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ICS Seminar Series - Associate Professor Jorge Knijnik

Date: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Time: 11.30am–1pm
Venue: The seminar will be hosted as a Hybrid event and will be held in person at WSU Parramatta South Campus, EA.G.19 as well as online via Zoom. Please RSVP to email yan.wang@westernsydney.edu.au by 5:00pm Wednesday, 10 March, noting if you will be attending in person or via zoom.

To Freire or not to Freire: Educational freedom and the populist right‐wing ‘Escola sem Partido’ movement in Brazil

Presenter: Associate Professor Jorge Knijnik

Discussant: Professor Rodrigo Nunes

Abstract

The rise of the far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro to Brazil’s presidency in 2019 was accompanied by a vow to eradicate any vestige of the ideas of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire from the country’s schools. Bolsonaro’s campaign was supported by ultra‐conservative groups that have as their core mission a traditional Christian and anti‐Communist educational agenda. At the forefront of these groups is the influential and conspicuous ‘Escola sem Partido’ (ESP) movement that has forcefully campaigned against Freire’s critical pedagogy across the country and promoted physical and online abuse of teachers since 2014.

In this presentation I ask how Freire’s philosophies can be an ally in the struggle for democratic education in the current political climate in Brazil. I employ a method of dialogical narrative to bring Freire’s theories and critical methodology to life and test their potency against the ESP educational philosophies. I employ Freire’s core ideas to examine the ESP policies and parliamentary bills. I go on to analyse documents and online content produced by civil society resistance to ESP pressures. The findings show the vitality of Freire’s pedagogical philosophy to empower oppressed communities in their demands for quality education. I conclude by demonstrating the vital role of the critical consciousness process and of Freire’s pedagogy of freedom to support ongoing struggles by teachers and communities to block ESP attempts to abolish critical thinking in Brazilian public education.

BIOGRAPHY

Associate Professor Jorge Knijnik is a lecturer in the School of Education and a researcher in the Institute for Culture and Society and the Centre for Educational Research. Dr Knijnik is an inaugural committee member of Women in Football Australia, a national association whose mission is to support gender equity within the Australian sports context. His task in this board is to create a research philosophy among all sport participants - communities, NGOs, players, industry and football bodies – thus endorsing an ethos of evidence-based decision making in the arena of sports, education and gender equity.

A/P Knijnik has wide understanding of industry partnerships that promote practical research endeavours. His current research develops procedures that offer clear evidence to industry and governments on where to focus their expenditures to increase youth wellbeing and educational outcomes. He played a leading role in an academia/industry/ government network that examined psychological and social topics associated to communal fitness programs delivered to middle-aged men by the state government in Sao Paulo (Brazil). He has recently published The World Cup Chronicles: 31 days that rocked Brazil. Bolgowlah Heights: Fair Play publishing

This is the link for the full paper https://berajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/berj.3667