ABSTRACT:
This article presents a contextual and updated analysis of the book Educação e atualidade brasileira (Education and Brazilian actuality), written by Paulo Freire in 1959, in which the author demonstrates how the contrast between the “democratic inexperience” and the “people emergence to national public life” formed the fundamental antinomy of Brazil in developing. Through a historical approach, Freire detects the origin of the anti-democratic mental dispositions of Brazilian people in Brazil formation itself. He also points out the processes that afforded the perpetuation of these anti-democratic mental dispositions. Detecting the end of the 1950s as the propitious scenario for a participative and critical insertion of people in the decision-making national processes, the author supports the necessity of educating women and men to democratic life, the role of an education that needed a complete revision. Considering the specificities of each historical moment, Freire’s reflections enlighten the current context, support the problematization of nowadays antinomies, and reveal the paths in which it is possible to build one education for social justice.
Keywords:
Democracy education; fundamental antinomy; exploration and colonization; criticality