Freire and Social Movements

This book tells the story of Grupo Mulher Maravilha (GMM), a grassroots feminist organization based in Recife, Brazil, which has been transforming lives and the community through Freirean-inspired popular education for over fifty years. It compares the educational activities of GMM to the Freirean practices of the Brazilian Landless Workers’ movement (MST), a movement of landless farmers fighting for land redistribution and agrarian reform. This analysis illustrates how social movements take up and reinvent Freirean theory in their local context, while also providing lessons to educators and organizations globally about how Freire’s pedagogy can be a central part of strategies for social and political change. Through the organizations’ histories and the voices of its members, the book explores how GMM’s practices—citizenship classes, anti-racist workshops, community mobilizations—and the MST’s educational initiatives— literacy programs and schools for thousands of adults and youth— address systemic inequalities and foster personal and community change.