Social Justice...Freire, Dewey, and Giroux

How have Paulo Freire’s theory of praxis, John Dewey’s philosophy of democracy and Henry Giroux’s view of the “discourse of democracy” influenced multicultural education as a space for social justice?

Education philosophers Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and Henry Giroux have all influenced multicultural education as a space for social justice.  Social justice by its very nature is philosophical.  If one is to be truly deserving of certain unalienable rights, then who will view the person on deserving or not?  Certainly not the peers or family of the deserving person could give such rights to someone.  Freire’s theory of praxis, Dewey’s philosophy of democracy, and Giroux’s personal views of democracy in Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life (1988) each influence education today.  From a social standpoint, each in his own right argues that all should receive the same education and the same level of instruction as everyone else.

                Paulo Freire wrote about social injustices that were taking place in Brazil.  His arguments were very similar to those being made in the 1950’s in America which led to the Brown v. Board of Education decision.  The difference in the two being that Freire wrote in the 1970’s and his work was focused more on the education of the different class systems.  In the United States today, we still have this problem.  Even though there is not segregation in our schools, there is social segregation taking place as we speak.  This is evident in areas where poor minority students live and must attend schools.  The problem is no longer that blacks and whites can go to school together in the same building; it is that the students who live in households in better parts of the city or in higher income suburban areas receive a better education than those that do not.  Freire would be appalled today if he were still alive.  This social injustice is taking place and his works are being cited regularly to help create lines of redistricting and making social class and education a thing of the past.

                John Dewey was a great educational philosopher.  He felt that the government we lived within was a democracy in the loosest sense.  He questioned democracy with a three pronged argument that ultimately led the reader to wonder exactly what freedoms did we really have.  Was democracy nothing more than the ‘masses’ being heard?  What about the little guy?  Were the minorities in America being listened to by those in office?  When considering education, Dewey was a proponent of classical liberalism.  He wanted, like Freire, equality among the ‘masses’.  In education, this take of equality has been of great influence concerning social justice.  His works continue to be used as reference material anytime an argument arises concerning freedom (as it was intended by our fore fathers).

                Henry Giroux, less known that that of Paulo Freire or John Dewey has had a profound impact on social justice and the schooling of Americans.  Like Dewey before him, Giroux aimed his research on that of democracy.  He spoke of teachers having a duty to students, not the ‘authority’ above them.  If someone’s social or political power over you makes you change your beliefs then you should not be in the profession.  Lawmakers make decisions based on what they feel the people who elected them would want in place.  This is the theory of democracy and that which Giroux suggests is not reality.  When education laws are enacted social equality is not taken into account.  Educator’s need to decide what they consider to be right, and then teach it to their students in order for democracy to be socially justified.  They should not base their pedagogy on that which elected officials say (if it is morally wrong). 

                Educator’s today are often faced with that of a two-way street.  We choose where to teach and most of the time what we teach.  Other than these decisions, the choice of how we teach is often left up to the administration and lawmakers that tell us what it ‘really’ takes for student to be successful.  Social justice in education comes in many forms.  Educating every student regardless of race, religion, or gender is one way, but this is happening in most places across the country already.  The piece that needs to be fixed is the ‘how’ they are being taught.  In some instances, minority students are crammed into schools that are run-down and are learning on second-hand textbooks, while the non-minority students across town are in state of the art facilities learning from their iPads.  This is social injustice at its finest.  To fix the problem we must consider the philosophies of such great minds as Freire, Dewey, and Giroux.  Their informative stances on social justice and liberation affect us as educators daily.  Multicultural roots and inclusion are common-place in our schools.  The effectiveness of these tools is where our focus must be on in order for freedom to be truly that, free.