Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

Freire became familiar with poverty and hunger during the Great Depression of the 1930s. When the PT prevailed in the municipal elections in 1988 Freire was appointed Secretary of Education for São Paulo. The Conference networks a wide variety of people with interests in Freire and Augusto Boal—liberatory education and theatre community organizing community-based analysis TIE race/gender/class/sexual orientation/geography analysis performance/performance art comparative education models etc.

D (pron. He is best known for his influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed which is considered one of the foundation texts of the critical pedagogy movement.