Introduction

Paulo Freire was born on September 19, 1921 in Recife, Brazil, in a Catholic middle-class family. Paulo Freire worked with the poor populations in the rural areas of northeast Brazil with the support of the federal government, while he was professor of History and Philosophy of Education in the University of Recife and gradually became influenced by Marxism, phenomenology and liberation theology. Pedagogy of the Oppressed is probably Freire’s most well-known text and for many students it is likely to be their first encounter with Freire’s work. Freire was involved in the organization of the Chilean agrarian reform and did consulting and training for its literacy campaign. Paulo Freire died of a heart failure on May 2, 1997, at the age of 75, while he was preparing a seminar on liberation pedagogy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.