‘Many scholars note that only if members of marginalised group are able to establish a caring and safe community, an autonomous, confident space where learning processes can appear in a smooth, democratic, egalitarian and non-discriminatory way, then they can enter the journey of transformative processes. Concepts such as ‘learning through struggle’ (Foley, 1999), ‘learning in struggle’ (Vieta, 2014; Gregorčič, 2017), and ‘awakening sleepy knowledge’ (Hall, 2009) have been studied in this context. But Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed grew from – and worked best among – marginalised and oppressed social groups, among the illiterate, who did not only demonstrate their own capabilities of learning transformations, but also the possibility for wider collective social transformations. On the contrary, Mezirow presents transformative learning as a concept which may or may not be linked to social action or wider social change (Finnegan, 2014: 4).’

The excerpt from Pedagogical Outlines for Emancipated Learning, the Intellectual Output of PYLE strategic partnership, that will be published by the end of the Year 2018.

Written by: Marta Gregorčič