THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The role of education in the transformation of society was not raised until in the 1970s in the twentieth century, some publications by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire opened a debate that is still current.

Although education is understood as a process that seeks to develop the competencies of individuals to favor their access to opportunities, the question is: what is it for in society?

In this sense, there are two clear currents:

-The first believes that the role of education is to reproduce a system, a social order.

-The second considers that education has the responsibility of resistance and social transformation.

It is possible to mention a third current that considers it to be both: on the one hand, perpetuating aspects of an established order that guarantee equilibrium to society and, on the other, the formation of critical, constructive and capable human beings. imagine a new future.

Educational processes that seek social transformation are known as popular education. These trends have achieved adherents who work in processes of construction of new knowledge in communities through education.

This new vision appeared to downplay the education inherited from modernity in which the role of the individual focused on repeating techniques and methodologies with the purpose of achieving success on an almost personal level.

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Aspects in which society is transformed by education

Education and ethics

From an ethical dimension, education seeks to create a reality with justice and equity, which allows the individual to live and build with dignity.

The gaze of the learner changes when he is educated, because he is no longer trained to achieve personal success but to carry out, in community, the transformations that society requires.

Individuals capable of transforming

Education that seeks the transformation of reality requires training men and women capable of changing not only their reality but that of their community. For this they must develop an organizational capacity in the face of what they want to change.

In this sense, education has a political dimension, where individuals know the organizational system of their society, they know exactly in what instances and in what times they can carry out transformations and they dare to do so.

From this perspective, in the workplace it is possible to recognize an education that transforms the thinking of a worker trained to make and reproduce techniques in a mind that thinks and designs a more equitable, just and creative way of transforming what exists.

At the social level, orienting education towards transformation allows changing the paradigm of education as a tool to achieve success for that of education as a mechanism to take care of the community itself.

In the cultural space, this vision stops seeing culture as an elite practice in which only some are recreated with the spectacle of others, to be understood as a process of expression of knowledge.

Finally at the economic level, education for social transformation places the individual in another place.

From a strictly productive function, it goes on to recover its nature of construction of meaning in community during the production of goods and services, recovering its function of caregiver and generator of resources in a sustainable way.

Knowledge of reality

Thinking education for social transformation implies developing pedagogies adjusted to those who will be trained.

It is about knowing and mastering a language that allows dialogue between those who guide a process of social organization and organized individuals.

The pedagogical dimension of education implies understanding reality and identifying in the language of the community the needs and opportunities to solve them.

Tools for an education that transforms

For decades, popular culture researchers developed multiple methodologies to approach communities and develop educational processes within them.

Creative forms such as games were created to recognize, express and document the thinking and feelings of the community and although they were very innovative, they did not achieve the objective of educating to transform society.

Thus, the research has been oriented to review content that helps in the formation of critical and analytical minds.

This methodological dimension has led to a permanent dialogue being established with the community through participatory research processes so that they recognize and appropriate their own forms of knowledge.

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State and education

Educational policy has to do with other state policies; It is essential to have a finance policy that recognizes and promotes education for the transformation of society.

It is important to specify and develop content for schools and universities, allocate the necessary resources to carry out the necessary processes in the various communities that make up society, and support teacher training processes.

In addition, it is necessary to establish medium and long-term processes, which exceed government periods, when thinking of education for social transformation.

Each community has its own rhythm for the recognition of its reality, adoption of tools and construction of the new vision of its needs and solutions.

Additionally, education designed to transform reality requires the State to develop a successful employment generation policy so that the training of individuals is not frustrated and is taken advantage of by the communities.

Education in the knowledge society

The accelerated development of information and communication technologies defines new challenges for education in its role of transforming reality.

The conversion of data into information and information into knowledge requires individuals who not only master new technological developments but also do so with analytical and critical thinking.

Another aspect is the appearance of a new challenge that consists of learning to learn that is revealed by the accelerated dynamics of information production and technology development.

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References

1. Kirkwood, G., & Kirkwood, C. (2011). Living adult education: Freire in Scotland (Vol. 6). Springer Science & Business Media.
2. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. Greenwood Publishing Group.
3. Apple, MW (2012). Education, politics and social transformation. Researching and teaching social issues: The personal stories and pedagogical efforts of professors of education, pp: 7-28.
4. Reid, A., Jensen, B., Nikel, J., & Simovska, V. (2008). Participation and learning: developing perspectives on education and the environment, health and sustainability. Participation and Learning, pp: 1-18.
5. Freire, P., & da Veiga Coutinho, J. (1970). Cultural action for freedom (pp. 476-521). Harvard educational review.