Freire 2.0: Pedagogy of the digitally oppressed

Abstract

This paper reinvents Freire’s concepts of ‘banking education’ and ‘literacy’ within the context of the exponential growth of digital instruction in the 21st century. We argue that digital learning (i.e. online or technology enhanced) undoubtedly increases access to education globally, but also can intensify some of the worst problems described in Freire’s banking model. Accordingly, we draw from postdigital theory to scrutinize the specific structures and functions of common digital Learning Management Systems (LMSs) used by schools (i.e. Blackboard and Google Classroom) to reveal a type of learning that further exacerbates the teacher-student dichotomy without liberating either party in a Freirean sense. We then use a Foucauldian lens to bring an awareness to how the accelerated use of these systems at scale, in part caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, can further entrench a data-driven, dehumanized educational experience which increases corporate profitability perhaps over the needs of students. Finally, we use these insights to modernize Freire’s concept of ‘literacy’ by building on Critical Medial Literacy (CML) in order to help educators address LMSs, (mis)information facilitated by digital content, and schooling in a (post)pandemic and postdigital world.

Keywords:

• Paulo Freire
• postdigitalism
• learning management system (LMS)
• critical digital literacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antony Farag

Antony Farag, Ed.D is a lecturer at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education and a Secondary Education Social Studies teacher at Westfield High School in Westfield, NJ. His research examines social studies education in predominately framed by Critical Race Theory. He is also a co-founder of Global Consciousness Consulting which seeks to provide consulting services to institutions informed by critical pedagogy to prepare organizations for a continually multiracial and globalizing world and to enhance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

Luke Greeley

Luke Greeley, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at Rutgers Business School. His research uses history and philosophy to study the intersections of education, economics, and the environment. Currently, his focus is on consumer education and consumer movements in relation to larger democratic and economic trends.

Andrew Swindell

Andrew Swindell is a doctoral candidate in Social Sciences and Comparative Education at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA. He currently works as an instructor for the international institute at UCLA, an editorial assistant for the Global Commons Review, and serves as the co-chair for the Education, Conflict, and Emergencies special interest group of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). His research interests include how community-based schooling promotes universal access to quality and inclusive education for people in emergency settings, critical media literacy, and global citizenship education.