Carlos Alberto Torres

El artículo comienza discutiendo las diversas interpretaciones de la globalización y presenta un análisis basado en la sociología política de la educación, centrándose en la tensión entre cosmopolitas y locales según Alvin Gouldner. Gouldner distingue dos tipos de cosmopolitas y cuatro de locales. En la sección 3, se exploran las posturas de hiperg...

Global Citizenship Education (GCE) has garnered increasing attention over the past two decades as a means of enabling learners to develop an understanding of diverse global, national, and local issues. The conceptualization of GCE has evolved through scholarly discourse, encompassing theoretical perspectives ranging from neoliberal to critical orie...

This review article in celebration of the 40th anniversary of IJLE provides an analysis of the scholarship on and about Paulo Freire in the state-of-the-art of IJLE publications between 1982–2022. The authors scanned around 4000 articles and book reviews published from 1982–2021 in the International Journal of Lifelong Education (JLE), and identifi...

Following Paulo Freire and his concept of pedagogy of hope, this book explores the educational role of hope as an approach to learning about global issues in different areas of the world. Climate change, racism, and the COVID-19 pandemic have shown more than ever the need for a global shift in education policy and practice. This book provides a con...

Freire is one of the most powerful voices challenging the hegemony of bureaucratic and banking educational systems. His voice was particularly influential impacting revolutionary processes and progressive social movements while at the same time learning from their practices. However, some silences in his oeuvres requires further examination. In thi...

Education by Experience (Educación por la Experiencia, E × E) is a programme that offers an innovative model of teaching values to children, youth, and adults. Its materials include different grade-level student textbooks as well as educator and parent guidebooks. Since its establishment in 2010, the programme has achieved broad dissemination and s...

This article discusses the origins and structure of what for the lack of a better term I will call the ‘Paulo Freire System’. Focusing on the historical experience of Angicos which catapulted Freire to world fame as an adult educator, a major claim of this article is that Freire’s work was a much more ambitious and revolutionary project than transf...

Este ensayo es una memoria histórica y una invitación a la utopía. Se enfoca en la universidad pública en América Latina bajo el precepto que toda universidad pública es por definición una institución responsable y comprometida con el florecimiento del bien común mediante el ejercicio en su docencia, investigación, extensión y sus multiples servici...

This paper offers our interpretation of an additional chapter to Pedagogy of the Oppressed as Paulo Freire might have written it on “ecopedagogy” which is inherently grounded in Freirean Pedagogy for transformational actions to emerge towards ending socio-environmental injustices. Although not named as such by Friere directly, the essence of ecoped...

Edited by Emiliano Bosio, this volume includes chapters with Henry Giroux, Carlos Alberto Torres, Lynette Shultz, Sharon Stein, William Gaudelli, Vanessa Andreotti, Hans Schattle, Yusef Waghid, Douglas Bourn, Massimiliano Tarozzi, Miri Yemini, Maria Guajardo, Maureen Ellis, Silvia Moraes, Eduardo Moraes Arraut and Josefina Moraes Arraut. Conversati...

La última conversación con Paulo Freire

We propose that together Social Contract Pedagogy (SCP) and Global Citizenship Education (GCE) offer a comprehensive vision including key principles and core elements that are important for rethinking education and shaping the future of the world. We introduce the novel concept of Social Contract Pedagogy (SCP) as a means to adapt the social contra...

The promotion of global citizenship has become one of the objectives of education systems in various parts of the world. This highlighted the widening of the idea of citizenship from the national to the global sphere, due to the effects produced by globalization. If the emergence of global elements within the traditional concept of education seems...

This article-dialogue addresses current criticisms of global citizenship and challenges frequent misinterpretations of Global Citizenship Education (GCE), while discussing what it means to educate for critical global citizenry in an increasingly multicultural world. It starts by considering the phenomena of globalization and the UN Global Education...

Multiculturalism burst in Asia with the winds of globalisation. Fuelled by immigration, cultural hybridity and normative regimes from multilateral and bilateral organisations, multiculturalism is a new challenge for Asian economies, their politics of culture and their higher education institutions. Moreover, although heavily implemented from the st...

Fifty years after Pedagogy of the Oppressed Carlos Alberto Torres Distinguished Professor, and UNESCO Chair on Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education. UCLA For a special issue of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity Starting from a psychology of oppression influenced by psychotherapists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Frantz Fanon and Erich Fr...

This chapter offers our interpretation of an additional chapter to Pedagogy of the Oppressed as Paulo Freire might have written it on “ecopedagogy” which is inherently grounded in Freirean Pedagogy for transformational actions to emerge towards ending socio-environmental injustices. Although not named as such by Friere directly, the essence of ecop...

There is no question that Paulo Freire’s contribution to education for social transformation has been phenomenal. This brief paper explores some of the earlier concepts developed by Freire in the seventies, what I have termed the First Freire, offering an unique perspective on his original thought.

This paper presents a remarkable conversation with Carlos Alberto Torres about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in relation to research, teaching, and learning in the USA. Torres is a Distinguished Professor of Education, UNESCO UCLA Chair on Global Learning and Global Citizenship Education, UCLA and Founding Director of the Paulo Freire Institut...

The focus of this work is the potential contributions and emerging challenges in comparative education. Globalization has brought a heterogeneous world globalization, having the global capitalism mostly as an expression, whereas there has been place enough for dissent. Limited theory and empirical research defeat the purpose of comparative educatio...

This book examines critically the ideas and performance of Paulo Freire as secretary of education in Brazil in the early 1990s, during the socialist democratic administration of the Workers Party in So Paulo. With an emphasis on theory, the authors discuss the relationships between the state and social movements as well as the relationships between...

In the first volume in the Critical Global Citizenship Education series, Torres combines theoretical and empirical research to present an original perspective on global citizenship education as a vitally important way of learning in a globalized world. In examining the requirements for effective global citizenship education and education reform, he...

Tanto la globalización, como la internacionalización, son fenómenos que, especialmente durante las últimas tres décadas, han incidido en los cambios educativos que una gran cantidad de países impulsan. Sus efectos traen consigo tensiones y conflictos en la medida en que las estructuras económicas, políticas, sociales y culturales buscan ser reconfi...

The notion of global citizenship education (GCE) has emerged in the international education discourse in the context of the United Nations Education First Initiative that cites developing global citizens as one of its goals. In this book, the authors argue that GCE offers a new educational perspective for making sense of the existing dilemmas of mu...

The primary contribution of my scholarly work in the field of sociology has been the development of a political sociology of education trying to understand how education—including schooling, universities, non-formal education, adult learning education, and popular education—contributes to social change, national and global development, and the bett...

Our intent in this chapter is to explore the changing political and economic context for state-supported higher education in Argentina and Mexico. In particular, we examine each country’s pre-eminent public university in the light of challenges and opportunities that we associate with globalisation. From our perspective, globalisation represents a...

This article focuses on the role of global universities and globalisations in an age of global interdependence and cosmopolitanism. Competing agendas that result from actions and reactions to multiple globalisations are considered in relation to global citizenship education. These agendas are crucial in understanding dilemmas of the local and the g...

This article discusses some of the generalized analyses of adult learning education, mostly informed by technocratic thinking, highlighting perceived trends in adult learning education between CONFINTEA V and CONFITEA VI. Those trends could be understood as challenges. Employing a political sociology of adult learning education as a critique of ins...

Conferencia con motivo de la incorporacion del Dr. Carlos Alberto Torres a la Academia Mexicana de Cienciascomo miembro correspondiente, Ciudad de Mexico, 14 de agosto de 2013, UNAM. Antes de dictar su conferenciael Dr. Torres se dirigio al auditorio en los siguientes terminos: “Estoy muy agradecido a Robert Arnove, Pedro Noguera,Peter Mayo, Meredi...

The creation of institutional networks in the recent history of Latin America has contributed decisively to the processes of developing and consolidating the social sciences as a whole and education in particular.

One of the most important themes in the discussion about Latin American university transformation is what kind of curriculum and knowledge-construction should be sustained in the public universities, especially from critical and progressive perspectives.

There are many definitions of globalization, or perhaps more accurately, there are many globalizations. Discussing the four faces of globalization – globalization from above, globalization from below, the globalization of human rights, and the globalization of the war against terrorism – and their impacts on education and learning, this article off...

Reading neoliberalism in a Gramscian key, this article argues that neoliberalism is not merely an ideological agenda but a new civilization design, what Gramsci termed a new historical bloc. Using the concept of new common sense as an analytical framework, the article offers 16 theses exploring different areas of education and policy impacted by ne...

Para Nietzsche las cosas no son neutras, no hay hechos, no existe un saber último predeterminado, por el contrario, es necesario una búsqueda interpretativa de la cual, se obtendrán múltiples “verdades”, así es como surge esta publicación, de la preocupación por comprender de un modo complejo los procesos de investigación en política educativa y la...

The main thesis of this paper is that Freire's original experience in Angicos anticipated a grand design for social transformation of educational systems. As such it brought together two key concepts that formulated the basis of his educational system: popular culture as an counter-hegemonic project and popular education, more particularly what was...

A legalistic perspective would be based on constitutional recommendations or mandates to the effect that it is the right of every citizen to be literate and educated, thus having access to adult learning education. Non-literate citizens, or those who have not completed primary school or secondary education, or who need to be retraining and “retoole...

Lifelong learning was created to offer a unified and compelling vision of the future, and as a paradigm that would bring about change. There are three dimensions of adult learning education as a paradigm: a scientific dimension, a pragmatic dimension, and an international dimension. The scientific dimension points to one of the major goals of adult...

This chapter offers a political sociology of adult learning education taken to a very holistic and practical analytical level. The arguments are deeply theoretical but also provide a historical-structural analysis. It is written with the belief that it is possible to link the normative principles which UNESCO’s GRALE report advocates with the concr...

Transformative social justice learning as a social, political, and pedagogical practice takes place when people reach a deeper, richer, more textured and nuanced understanding of themselves and their world. Not in vain, Freire always advocated the simultaneous reading of the world and of the word. Based on a key assumption of Critical Theory that a...

For the UNESCO Lifelong Learning Institute, coordinating and writing the General Report on Adult Learning Education (GRALE report) was not an easy feat. Like many documents of its kind, GRALE is a policy advocacy document, drawing from reports produced by governments, secondary data, and supplementary empirical reports and information. Yet to have...

The culture of science that predominates in many academic circles dissociates almost by definition science from culture, and analytics from advocacy. While there are portentous analytical risks when advocacy is brought to the fore as a central element of educational policy formation — and some institutions like UNESCO have assumed explicit responsi...

This chapter addresses how adult learning education may contribute to our modern societies, signaling what I have termed the crises of our modern civilization. There is no question that we are facing a profound set of intertwined crises, and that they seem to feed to each other. In facing this challenge we need to delve into the richest pedagogical...

Critical Theorist Carlos Alberto Torres offers a political sociology of adult learning and education, based on Critical Social Theory and the always inspiring work of Paulo Freire. Empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, this new book follows the footsteps of his classic book published in the early nineties The Politics of Nonformal E...

This essay reports analytically some of the conclusions of a larger research project. It discusses the connections between teachers unions, their presence in civil societies, and their confrontation with State policies particularly under neoliberal regimes. It explores how teacher unions accumulate – through conflict and collaboration – political a...

The main thesis of this paper is that Freire’s original experience in Angicos anticipated a grand design for social transformation of educational systems. As such it brought together two key concepts that formulated the basis of his educational system: popular culture as an counter-hegemonic project and popular education, more particularly what was...

The creation of institutional networks in the recent history of Latin America has played a crucial role in the shaping and consolidation of the Social and Educational Sciences. These processes can be explained within the framework of the so-called knowledge and social reflexivity society. Both the emergence of a networking society and the growing a...

Introdução Nas últimas três décadas, o neoliberalismo concebeu a educação dentro de um modelo baseado no mercado. Neste capítulo, nós iremos analisar criticamente como a atual crise econômica mundial, iniciada em 2008, afetou as complexas relações entre a educação superior e as globalizações, no plural. Nossa discussão sobre modelos relevantes será...

This paper discusses Critical Theory, a model of theorizing in the field of the political sociology of education. We argue for a reimagined Critical Theory to herald an empowering, liberatory education that fosters curiosity and critical thinking, and a means for successful bottom-up, top-down political engagement. We present arguments at a theoret...

Neoliberalism has utterly failed as a viable model of economic development, yet the politics of culture associated with neoliberalism is still in force, becoming the new common sense shaping the role of government and education. This ‘common sense’ has become an ideology playing a major role in constructing hegemony as moral and intellectual leader...

This article begins with a discussion of the implications of CONFINTEA VI having been organised in Brazil - the author uses the term "Brazilian effect" - and the role of social movements challenging neoliberalism. Next, drawing from the experience of Latin America, this paper analyses the counter-hegemonic practice of the new social movements. The...

In this study, faculty at institutions of higher education in Southern California were surveyed to determine the ways they interpret the effects of globalization dynamics upon their various teaching and research activities. Faculty in the state’s three higher education tiers spoke positively about the intellectual benefits to be gained by exposure...

Neoliberal globalization, the most prominent model of globalization, has deeply affected the university in the context of academic capitalism (Torres, 2008, 2009b; Van Heertum, Olmos, & Torres, 2010). We agree with Gary Rhoades and Sheila Slaughter’s understanding of academic capitalism as a pattern of increasing pressures and opportunities for col...

Popular-education programmes conducted by social movements are reshaping politics and education in Latin America. Negotiating with governments, they promote social justice while educationally challenging ?neo-liberal? educational standardisation. Moving from a defensive towards an offensive strategy, some movements support themselves economically w...

Spanning an extraordinary 30-year career, this book collects seminal essays by critical theorist Carlos Alberto Torres. Torres is among the foremost scholars devoted to interpreting the work of Paulo Freire and has done much over the years to raise the visibility of Freire's contribution to educational theory. In addition, he has helped to establis...

Education has in modern times been situated within the nation-state. It has been shaped by the demands within the state to prepare labor for participation in its economy and to prepare citizens to participate in the polity. This approximate congruence of nationstate and formalized education becomes problematic as globalization processes place limit...

This volume by noted critical education scholar Carlos Alberto Torres takes up the question of how structural changes in schooling and the growing impacts of neoliberalism and globalization affect social change, national development, and democratic educational systems throughout the world. The first section of the book offers analytical avenues to...

Este artículo, que tiene como marco referencial la extensión de oportunidades educativas a niños, a jóvenes e incluso a adultos de todos los sectores sociales en América Latina que marcó el siglo xx, muestra cómo el ideario de la Ilustración benefició la ampliación de los servicios educativos en pre-escolar, primaria, secundaria y universidad, gene...