. The aims of this research are to understand and complicate learners’ participation in educational programming as described in the TfT curriculum. Methodologically, this research analyzes the theoretical dialectic relationship in participatory pedagogy through a critical discourse analysis of the TfT curriculum, the implementers’ notes, and interviews with select implementers. This paper finds that implementation of TfT highlights contradictions and complications in participatory discourses presented in Freirian theories of participatory pedagogy related to the concepts of generating themes, inclusion, and the stance of the participants and facilitators. Moreover, these contradictions and complications must be considered in developing participatory pedagogical curriculum and practice.

1. Allyson
Krupar
PhD
Candidate
Pennsylvani
a State
University
314 Keller
University
Park, PA
16801
AllyKrupar@
psu.edu
Skype:
Ally_Krupar
PARTICIPATORY
PEDAGOGY IN
DISCOURSE OF
PRACTICE: APPLYING
FREIRE IN TRAINING FOR
TRANSFORMATION

2. MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH
CURRICULUM

3. BACKGROUND
¡ Curriculum genre
§ Instruct
§ Impel
§ Motivate
¡ Discourses:
§ Paulo Freire – ideas about learner participation in the
classroom
§ Dialectic relationship between curriculum practitioners’
belief Listening surveys
§ International development / adult education –
participation, social justice focused, preference given to
supporting and building local infrastructure

4. CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (CDA)
¡ Data sources:
§ TfT curriculum
§ Discursive community
§ Implementers’ notes
§ Interviews with select implementers – self selected
¡ ‘Language as social practice’ (Fairclough and
Wodak, 1997), context is key
¡ Happy Consciousness

5. CODING DATA
¡ Verbs
§ i.e. Identify, Help, Understand, Arise/ emerge
¡ Superlatives
§ i.e. Most, Strongest, Always
¡ Pronouns of inclusion
§ We, they, them, their, you, us, I, one, his, her
¡ Demonstratives
§ these, this, that, those

6. THEMES
¡ Generative themes and the stance of the
participants and facilitators.
¡ Third person reference terms
§ Team
§ People
§ Community / the community
§ Animators
¡ We/ I – pronouns of inclusion
¡ Who is the subject? (passive voice use)
§ Who has agency?

8. DATA – CURRICULUM SAMPLE
“Everybody thinks the education they provide is relevant, but who decides
what is relevant to a particular community? Many have stressed that the
community themselves must choose the issues which are central in their
education and development programs. Paulo Freire has taken this
concept much deeper, by pointing out the link between emotion and
motivation to act.
Much education has tried to ignore human feelings and concentrated only
on reason and actions. But Freire recognizes that emotions play a crucial
role in transformation. Feelings are facts. Only by starting with the issues
on which the community have strong feelings – hope, fear, worry, anger,
joy, sorrow – and bringing these to the surface, will we break through the
deadening sense of apathy and powerlessness which paralyses the poor
in many places.
[…] The role of the animator is to help people find new hope as they tap
into their natural energy and break through this apathy together.
Paulo Freire calls the issues that generate this natural energy and hope
‘generative themes.’” (pp. 16-17).

9. DATA – INTERVIEW SAMPLE 1
I have experienced Frer ian pedagogy- his book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” has been an
inspiration for my involvement in advocacy for social and political change. When I fi rst
experienced his teaching, I got t ransformed (my l i fe and career) . I original ly studied as a
Professional Nurse; during the Liberia c ivil war, I worked to save lives and had the passion
to al leviate human suf fer ing and to help socially deprived people advocate for their rights.
For seven years I had the bel ieved that I was helping the poor; not unti l I experienced the
teaching of Paulo. […] I was analyzing the si tuat ion of the poor in relat ion to my
profession; I was trying to understand whether my intervention as nurse was helping the
poor or increasing their pover ty? My analysis brought me to the conclusion that I was
contributing to the condition of the poor given the fact that when a poor man gets sick, he
comes to the hospital, he undergo several tests to help me understand his condition and
to diagnose his i l lness; on the basis of laboratory resul ts, drugs are ordered. This poor
man pays for the ser vices and his drugs. He returns to his village face with the same
situation and poor living condition (hygiene and sanitation). He takes his medication and
gets well; he goes back to work on his farm for the next two to three weeks and earned
some money to feed and send his children to school. Suddenly, he fal l s i l l again and he
goes back to the hospital to seek treatment and follow the same routine and pays
treatment and ser vice cost and this goes on and on (a rout ine).
In the above scenario who am I? I saw mysel f as a distributor and a sale agent for the big
pharmaceutical companies producing drugs. I was taking money from the peripher y to the
center, money from the poor to the rich and making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Hence, I became a t ransformed person helping to create awareness among the poor on
why they are the way they are” ( Interview 04, 26 February 2014).

10. DATA – INTERVIEW SAMPLE 2
I’m the brand-new PhD. I'm really smart and I have developed this program with them.
And I keep saying to them, what do you want to learn? Let's understand? And they said,
“we want to learn about the Bible.” And I said, “well , what about your chi ldren?” I mean,
all of them had lost a child. “So, you want to learn about maternal and child health?” “We
want to learn about the Bible.” I am serious. I t was the most eye-opening experience of
my l i fe. I had a choice. Not real izing I had an agenda, I definitely had an agenda. I had a
choice; do I push my agenda, which was MCH? Or do I real ly hear what they are saying. So
I said okay, i f you really believe in this, you’ve got to go where they say they want to go.
So, l iteral ly, I had not read the Bible. So I said okay, I know Jesus had a mother, her name
was Mary and i t ought to be easy to find. So […] we were going into the first day of the
workshop, the first day of the workshop was “Mary was blessed among women and you
are blessed to be women but Mary had responsi b i l i ties and sacrifices and blessings. ” And
then I divided them into groups to discuss those three characteristics. Couldn't bring
them back. They were talking. They were cr ying. I mean it was amazing. It was amazing to
have gone down the path they wanted and then I ended up developing a leadership
curriculum around women in the Bible for them. And eventually we got to the health. But I
really believe that i t was because we started where they were. To me that’s a poignant
example of real ly bel ieving in par t icipatory learning. […] Now you asked the quest ion
about developing generative themes with the community or group with the community
i tsel f .
Q: Yes, so that's an example I would think.
A: You would think but the decisions to do that were really mine. So it was listening to the
community but then going back and developing it mysel f .

12. THEMES
¡ Us / Them
¡ Balancing participatory curriculum
development
§ Risk of transmitting practitioners ideology
¡ Organizations define the generative themes
for the learners, identifying them prior to
community work or with facilitators in the
process of engaging community members

13. IMPLICATIONS
¡ Insiders/ outsiders in the curriculum
¡ Genre of curriculum/ textbook
¡ ‘Participation’
§ Continuum
§ Authority: The use of pronouns within the
curriculum vacillates between distancing the
facilitator from the learner and aligning both as
a team (Rogers 2011). This relates to the
dialectic between the facilitator and the learner,
the contradictory intention to develop content
with the learner and enforce the facilitators’
authority.

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