From Freire’s Critical Pedagogy to the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Continuities, Ruptures, and New Educational Challenges
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
This article examines the historical and contemporary relevance of critical pedagogy for language education in the digital age. Grounded in Paulo Freire’s conception of education as the practice of freedom, it traces the global evolution of this pedagogical tradition and discusses its encounters with digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Drawing on a conceptual, literature-based analytical approach, the article articulates a clearer research focus by examining how critical literacy, critical digital literacy, and emerging forms of critical AI literacy can inform language learning in technologically mediated contexts. Within this landscape, we explore how AI-based activities can support reflective engagement and serve as mediating resources for contextualized, interest-driven language learning connected to students’ realities. Rather than presenting empirical cases, we propose a pedagogical framework grounded in critical pedagogy for analyzing and designing AI-mediated language practices. Building on Freirean traditions of dialogue, praxis, and critical consciousness, we argue that engaging with AI and digital media, through analysis and pedagogical design, can open new spaces for inquiry and dialogue in language teacher education. The aim is to foreground how critical pedagogy can guide ethical, dialogic, and humanizing approaches to language education in digitally and algorithmically saturated contexts.
Downloads
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Critical Pedagogy, Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Literacy, Language Education and Technologies
No funding sources declared.
Ávila, J., & Pandya, J. Z. (Eds.). (2013). Critical digital literacies as social praxis: Intersections and challenges. Peter Lang.
Apple, M. W. (1995). Education and power (2nd ed.). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203948231
Biesta, G. (2013). The beautiful risk of education. Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Polity Press.
Buckingham, D. (2007). Beyond technology: Children’s learning in the age of digital culture. Polity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2007.00135.x
Canagarajah, A. S. (2005). Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge.
Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford University Press.
Crawford, K. (2021). The atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. Yale University Press.
Crookes, G. (2009). Values, philosophies, and beliefs in TESOL: Making a statement. Cambridge University Press.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. Routledge.
Freire, P. (2006). Pedagogia da esperança. Paz e Terra.
Freire, P. (2014). Pedagogia do oprimido. Paz e Terra.
Gadotti, M. (1994). Reading Paulo Freire: His life and work. SUNY Press.
García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gerlach, J. (2020). Kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik: Sprache Macht Bildung. Waxmann.
Gerlach, J., & Lücke, M. (2024). Kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik und Medienbildung in Migrationsgesellschaften. Springer VS. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42436-8
Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theory and resistance in education: Toward a pedagogy for the opposition. Bergin & Garvey.
Godwin-Jones, R. (2023). Emerging spaces for language learning: AI bots, ambient intelligence, and the metaverse. Language Learning & Technology, 27(2), 6–27.
Hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. Routledge.
Janks, H. (2010). Literacy and power. Routledge.
Jeon, J., & Lee, S. (2023). Large language models in education: A focus on the complementary relationship between human teachers and ChatGPT. Education and Information Technologies, 28, 15873–15892. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11834-1
Luke, A. (2014). Defining critical literacy. In J. Pandya & J. Avila (Eds.), Moving critical literacies forward (pp. 19–31). Routledge.
Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2011). New literacies: Everyday practices and social learning (3rd ed.). Open University Press.
McLaren, P. (1989). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education. Longman.
Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.
Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy Press.
Pennycook, A. (2021). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Veldhuis, A., van der Veen, C., & ten Dam, G. (2024). Critical AI literacy: A scoping review. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 5(1), 100154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2024.100154
Walsh, C. (2013). Pedagogías decoloniales: Prácticas insurgentes de resistir (re)existir y (re)vivir. Ediciones Abya-Yala.
Williamson, B. (2023). The social life of AI in education. Edinburgh University Press.
Wodak, R. (2015). The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean. SAGE.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.