Educação para a democracia

An articulation between Habermas' communicative action and Paulo Freire's pedagogy in health training processes

Abstract

The concept of pedagogical-communicative action the relationship between communication and education, based on two important epistemic hypotheses: Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action and Paulo Freire’s pedagogical bases (within the popular health education perspective). This essay intends to discuss how pedagogical-communicative action can contribute to insights on health training processes, based on these two authors’ convergent approaches, such as: communication/dialogue, interdisciplinarity, democracy, work and emancipation. The pedagogical action is based on social learnings supported by communicative rationality, in order to enable a dialogical, supportive and radically open culture to transformation processes based on social emancipation. In communicative action, which articulates all kinds of action (Teleological, Strategic, Normative, Expressive and Communicative), participants in an interaction seek consensus and understanding. Therefore, an internal relationship between praxis and rationality is established, elevating the normative content of mutual understanding-oriented action. Habermas and Freire develop communicative action proposals deeply interconnected, which is why there is a connection within the role of communication in human relationships and, consequently, in health. The pedagogical action in enhanced by the integration between the communicative action and elements of popular education. From this perspective, language begins to take on the functions of understanding and coordinating goal-oriented activities of the different subjects of action and of socialization itself. Therefore, the language expressed in speech or signs is a result of social action, which becomes capable of producing significant changes and interventions in health training processes through sharing.