Freire and the US Reconceptualization: Remembering Curriculum as International Conversation

Abstract

This paper draws on the internationalization of Curriculum Studies as an underway process since the very beginning of the reconceptualization of the field in the United States. In that context, the work focused on the inspiring influence of Paulo Freire found in the seminal writings and main scholars who conducted that process. Freire’s concept such as conscientizacao, humanizing education, liberating education are important concepts in which these scholars elaborate to talk back to the mainstream of the field conceived exclusively as curriculum development. Freire’s work was also a taking back to that rationale that had arrived in Latin America in the 1960’s as a new educational technology. Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed appeared strongly influencing the US reconceptualization of the field. The reconceptualized field of curriculum was also international from the start.