What is the Meaning of: Critical pedagogy | Concept and Definition of: Critical pedagogy
The concept of pedagogy derives from the Greek word former paidagogos, composed by Paidós ('child') and gogia ("bring" or "lead"). Originally, the term referred to the slave who accompanied the children to school.
With time, pedagogy began to concern the whole of knowledge education and education. Some consider that the pedagogy is a science applied to psychosocial character, while others find that it is knowledge or even an art.
There are different types of pedagogy, as General pedagogy (associated with the universal issues of research and action on education), specific pedagogies (which systematize a specific body of knowledge according to the many historical realities), traditional pedagogy and contemporary pedagogy.
In turn, critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that encourages students to question and challenge the beliefs and practices that they are taught. It is a group of theories and practices to promote critical awareness.
In the context of critical pedagogy, it belongs to the professor to guide students to make them questioning the so-called repressive practices, in order to generate liberating answers individually and group.
The first step of critical pedagogy is to ensure that the student has questions as a member of a social process (which includes cultural norms, national identity and religion, for example). Then, once the student finds that society is imperfect, it is encouraged to share this knowledge to change the social reality.