The transformation of higher education in the context of globalization: Implications from Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy

Yi-Huang Shih^*

• Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Xinfeng, Hsinchu, Taiwan

The rapid development of information technology in the past two decades has accelerated the pace of globalization. Encompassing a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, the term globalization has remained at the center of contemporary political and academic discourse. In other words, globalization is the context of economic and academic trends that are part of the reality of the 21st century. The wave of globalization has profoundly influenced higher education, creating opportunities for transnational collaboration and knowledge sharing, while simultaneously accelerating the marketization of education and the rise of performance-oriented models. As universities across the globe increasingly engage in international rankings and cross-border competition, education risks becoming instrumentalized, with a predominant focus on workforce preparation at the expense of cultivating critical thinking, democratic responsibility, and social equity. Within this paradoxical context, Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy offers valuable theoretical resources for re-envisioning the mission of higher education. It positions education as a practice of liberation and social justice, thereby urging universities to reclaim a more humanized and transformative role in society (Altbach and Knight, 2007;Freire, 2000;Giroux, 2011;Shih, 2022). This article aims to explore the transformation of higher education in the context of globalization from the perspective of Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy. The role of universities as the engines of knowledge-based economies drives global internationalization of higher education, and internationalization has transformed the higher education landscape around the world and has dramatically changed itself. Some question whether the change is for better or worse given some of the unintended consequences of internationalization such as commercialization, diploma and accreditation mills, international rankings and the great brain race.Globalization and internationalization are related but not the same thing.Globalization is the context of economic and academic trends that are part of the reality of the 21st century. Globalization has often been described not merely as a process of increasing interconnectedness but as a transformation in institutional governance that transcends national boundaries. Rather than focusing solely on economic or cultural integration, globalization can be understood as the expansion of transnational regulatory and normative frameworks that reshape how institutions operate and interact. Within this context, the globalization of higher education extends beyond student mobility or internationalization strategies to encompass the reconfiguration of universities within transnational spaces of governance and policy diffusion. It involves the emergence of global regimes of coordination and accountability, including international ranking systems, quality assurance mechanisms, and the circulation of academic capital. From this perspective, the globalization of higher education reflects a shift from nationally oriented systems to a transnational institutional order, wherein universities negotiate their legitimacy and competitiveness through alignment with global standards and market logics (Altbach and Knight, 2007;Carnoy, 2005;Hazelkorn, 2011;Held and McGrew, 2007;Knight, 2013;Marginson, 2016;Robertson, 1992;Shih, 2024). "Globalization" itself is a portmanteau concept, more often used to describe a set of systemic sociocultural causal mechanisms and processes rather than a single explanatory variable. In the era of higher education globalization, universities are increasingly required to situate themselves within the international academic community by fostering cross-border exchanges and institutional collaboration. Globalization has simultaneously heightened the demand for student mobility and transnational employability, leading to a growing participation in short-term exchange programs and international degree studies. In response, universities must recalibrate their approaches to institutional governance, academic management, and curriculum design in order to cultivate environments that facilitate cross-border learning and align with the evolving global dynamics of higher education. Furthermore, the defining features of globalization-such as knowledge flows, international rankings, and the commodification of education-have significantly impacted universities.These impacts include the weakening of academic autonomy, challenges to educational equity, and the exacerbation of social inequality, all of which are closely tied to the persistence of knowledge hegemony rooted in Western-centrism (Altbach and Knight, 2007;Marginson, 2016). As Altbach and Knight (2007) argue, globalization has transformed higher education into a competitive global market, influencing institutional priorities and practices. In this context, a critical question arises: does higher education still retain its public mission? This remains an issue warranting in-depth reflection and inquiry. Although Paulo Freire's pedagogical framework was originally developed in the context of literacy education and local, dialogical learning among marginalized groups, its core principles-conscientization, dialogue, and the critique of oppression-possess strong analytical potential for understanding the complex power relations that characterize the globalization of higher education. Freire's approach is fundamentally anthropological and emancipatory, focusing on how individuals and communities become aware of and act upon the social, political, and economic structures that shape their lives (Freire, 2000). While Bamberger and Morris (2023) critique internationalization from a macro-structural standpoint-highlighting processes such as commercialization, global citizenship discourses, and postcolonial imperialism-Freire's pedagogy enables a micro-structural and relational analysis that uncovers how these global forces are experienced, internalized, and contested by individuals and learning communities within universities. In other words, Freire's framework is particularly suited for examining how globalization affects the lived experiences and consciousness of learners and educators. It helps to explain how knowledge hierarchies, linguistic imperialism, and Western epistemic dominance-products of globalized higher education-manifest in daily pedagogical interactions, curriculum design, and identity formation (Bamberger and Morris, 2023;Freire, 2000). The work of the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire has been extraordinarily influential. Freire's ideas have been taken up not just by educationists, but also by scholars and practitioners in a wide range of other fields, including theology, philosophy, sociology, politics, women's studies, nursing, counseling, social work, disability studies, and peace studies. In educational circles, Freire is regarded as one of the founding figures of critical pedagogy (Roberts, 2017). Paulo Freire's core concept of critical pedagogy emphasizes that education should promote individual consciousness awakening (critical consciousness), social change, and liberation. Key viewpoints: Paulo Freire (1997) asserted that "the development of critical consciousness is a process of critical cognition that enables individuals to comprehend the social, political, and economic realities in which they are embedded, and to engage in praxis-reflection and action-on these realities." Freire underscored that this development is not a matter of mere knowledge transmission or skill acquisition.Rather, it emerges through the dynamic interplay of dialogue, reflection, and action, enabling the oppressed to gain a critical awareness of their condition and to become active participants in the transformation of history (Freire, 1997(Freire, , 2000)). According to Freire, the root of oppression lies in dehumanizing structures. The awakening of consciousness thus constitutes a humanizing praxis-one that reclaims individuals' agency and dignity by moving them from passive recipients of reality to active agents of change. The development of critical consciousness, therefore, represents a liberatory educational process. Through collective dialogue and the cultivation of critical awareness, individuals are empowered not only to resist systems of injustice, but also to collaboratively construct a society grounded in human dignity and compassion (Freire, 1997(Freire, , 2000)). Shor and Freire discuss here the dialogical method of liberatory education.Dialogue is not a mere technique to achieve some cognitive results; dialogue is a means to transform social relations in the classroom, and to raise awareness about relations in society at large. Dialogue is a way to recreate knowledge as well as the way we learn. It is a mutual learning process where the teacher poses critical problems for inquiry. Dialogue rejects narrative lecturing where teacher talk silences and alienates students. In a problem-posing participatory format, the teacher and students transform learning into a collaborative process to illuminate and act on reality. This process is situated in the thought, language, aspirations, and conditions of the students. It is also shaped by the subject matter and training of the teacher, who is simultaneously a classroom researcher, a politician, and an artist (Shor and Freire, 1987b). Furthermore, education must be democratic and dialogical. Freire emphasized the importance of dialogue between teachers and students. The various elements of dialogue include love, humility, hope, faith and critical thinking (Freire, 2000;Shih, 2020b). Dialogue, as Freire (2000) contends, represents an encounter between individuals mediated by the world, with the goal of jointly naming and transforming that world. This process requires active engagement from all participants, where each individual exercises their fundamental right to speak, listen, and be heard in reciprocal interaction. True dialogue is thus not a monologic transmission of knowledge, as seen in what Freire critiques as the "banking model" of education, but rather a co-creative and emancipatory practice rooted in love, humility, and faith in people's ability to transform their reality (Freire, 1984(Freire, , 2000)). Paulo Freire's main concern is how to educate people to emancipate themselves from the culture of silence and to meet the needs of humanity and to develop a more just society. Of course, this emancipatory education method is conscientious, and hopes to use this educational method as the basis for helping individuals to awaken their own critical consciousness, and then take a more critical view of social reality to obtain liberation. For this reason, Freire's liberation of education can change people's perception of external reality (Shih, 2020b;Shor and Freire, 1987a;Taylor, 1993), making individuals more critical and more autonomous. According to Paulo Freire's (2000) theory, liberation is not merely a challenge to oppressive structures, but is realized through critical reflection and action. This process is ongoing, historical, and both social and collective in nature. The process of liberation is inseparable from praxis, a concept that emphasizes the integration of theory and practice, which lies at the core of Freire's pedagogical framework. Praxis involves active engagement with the world through reflection and transformative action, forming the foundation of Freire's belief that theory alone is insufficient without practice that leads to social change. In this process, subjectivity is redefined. Individuals cease to be mere victims or passive recipients of societal structures and become active agents in transforming the status quo. This shift in individual agency is aligned with Freire's concept of educational liberation, where education is not a one-way transmission of knowledge but rather a dynamic, critical dialogue between teachers and students (Freire, 1984(Freire, , 1997(Freire, , 2000;;Shih, 2020b). The implementation of education affects a country's development and success, and higher education plays an especially crucial role in this process. Moreover, internationalization holds significant importance in the development of higher education. Internationalization, particularly through student mobility, has a long history in higher education (HE). Internationalization has transformed the higher education landscape around the world and has dramatically changed itself. The positioning of higher education as a key driver of national competitiveness has increasingly framed universities as engines for generating economically productive knowledge and cultivating high-skilled knowledge entrepreneurs. This utilitarian view has led to a close alignment between higher education and national policies for economic advancement, often emphasizing innovation capacity, human capital development, and global market integration. Scholars have argued that this "knowledge economy" framing narrows the social purposes of the university, privileging instrumental outputs over broader democratic and cultural roles. The globalization of higher education thus presents both opportunities and profound risks. On the one hand, globalization has facilitated unprecedented flows of knowledge, student and faculty mobility, and cross-border collaboration.International partnerships, transnational research networks, and global problem-solving initiatives-particularly in fields such as climate change, health, and technology-underscore the potential of higher education to serve as a cosmopolitan force for collective advancement (Altbach, 2016;Bamberger and Morris, 2023;Knight, 2013;Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004;Shih and Wang, 2022;Wang and Shih, 2022).Universities are increasingly embedded in global academic circuits, expanding possibilities for intellectual exchange and intercultural learning. These processes, however, are not neutral; they are deeply shaped by asymmetries of power, with elite institutions in the Global North often dominating the terms of engagement (Shahjahan and Morgan, 2016). On the other hand, the globalization of higher education has intensified the penetration of neoliberal logics into academic life.Universities are increasingly drawn into marketization, managerialism, and standardization, privileging competitiveness and rankings over equity and critical inquiry (Marginson, 2018;Naidoo, 2016). The dominance of global university rankings, for example, exerts pressure on institutions to reorient research and teaching toward performance metrics, often at the expense of local needs, social justice, and inclusivity. This trend risks reducing universities to knowledge factories serving the imperatives of global capital rather than cultivating spaces for critical citizenship and democratic participation. Against this backdrop, Paulo Freire's (2000) principles of critical consciousness, dialogue, and liberation offer a counter-hegemonic framework for reimagining the role of higher education. Freire's critique of the "banking model of education," in which students passively receive knowledge, resonates strongly in the context of neoliberal globalization, where knowledge is commodified and students are constructed as consumers. Instead, Freire advocates dialogical engagement, where learners and educators co-construct knowledge through mutual reflection and action. Such an approach can cultivate the critical awareness necessary for students to interrogate the structural inequalities embedded in global academic systems and to envision alternative futures.Building on Paulo Freire's insights, scholars of critical pedagogy argue that universities must reclaim their emancipatory potential. Giroux (2011) stresses that higher education should not merely prepare students for the labor market but should nurture critical agents capable of challenging social injustices and contributing to democratic renewal. Santos (2014) similarly contends that the hegemony of Western epistemologies in global academia has marginalized alternative knowledges, particularly those rooted in the Global South and Indigenous traditions. He calls for an "ecology of knowledges," where diverse epistemologies coexist and inform collective solutions to global challenges. Integrating such perspectives within higher education curricula can counterbalance the homogenizing tendencies of globalization and enrich students' capacity for interdisciplinary and intercultural problem-solving.Importantly, reclaiming higher education as a transformative force requires more than pedagogical innovation; it also entails structural and policy change. Resisting the neoliberal rankings-driven logic involves reasserting higher education as a public good-an institution accountable not only to economic imperatives but also to democratic values, cultural vitality, and human dignity. This means strengthening participatory governance structures, fostering community engagement, and prioritizing equity in access and outcomes. Such reforms highlight the need for universities to align not only with global competitiveness but also with the aspirations of justice and solidarity within their local and global communities.In sum, the globalization of higher education is a contradictory process, simultaneously opening up possibilities for collaboration and reproducing new forms of inequality. By drawing on Freirean pedagogy and critical university studies, we can envision a model of higher education that resists narrow instrumentalism and embraces its democratic, ethical, and transformative missions. In this vision, the university is not merely a site for producing economically valuable knowledge, but a space for cultivating critical consciousness, fostering dialogue across differences, and building solidarities that advance justice and human dignity on a global scale.Finally, the author severes practical constraints involved in implementing Freirean pedagogy within contemporary higher education. Although critical consciousness and dialogue are rightly identified as "vehicles" for resistance and transformation, the current analysis risks underestimating the difficulty of translating these commitments into everyday institutional practices. Organizational realities-such as precarious academic employment (particularly in the UK), audit and compliance cultures, managerial performativity, standardized curricula, heavy teaching loads, and ranking-driven research pressures-significantly restrict the time, autonomy, and pedagogical risk-taking required for sustained dialogical work. More concretely situating pedagogical praxis within these conditions also implies that teachers and students must engage in authentic, humble, hopeful, loving, and critically grounded pedagogical dialogue that nurtures their mutual critical consciousness. Through such dialogical encounters, they are able to refine their shared humanity, become more fully human, and cultivate a more humanized learning atmosphere within higher education, thereby contributing to the development of a more genuinely humanizing higher education environment.