ABORDAGEM FREIREANA E BNCC – DESENVOLVIMENTO DO PENSAMENTO CRÍTICO, AUTONOMIA E CONSCIÊNCIA CIDADÃ NA EDUCAÇÃO BÁSICA BRASILEIRA FREIREAN APPROACH AND BNCC – DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING, AUTONOMY, AND CITIZEN CONSCIOUSNESS IN BRAZILIAN BASIC EDUCATIO

Abstract

ABSTRACT
The National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) has been consolidated as a regulatory and normative framework for basic education in Brazil, guiding competencies and skills that must be ensured at all stages and modalities of teaching. However, its implementation has sparked intense debates, especially when confronted with Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, which advocates an educational practice aimed at autonomy, citizenship awareness, and the development of critical thinking. On the one hand, the BNCC seeks to guarantee minimum standards of quality and equity; on the other, it risks reducing school education to a set of technical and instrumental prescriptions, to the detriment of the ethical, political, and emancipatory dimensions of education. In this context, the object of this article is to analyze the potential and limitations of articulating the Freirean approach with the assumptions of the BNCC, investigating how it is possible to reconcile a normative framework with a pedagogy that prioritizes creative freedom, social critique, and students’ protagonism. The research aims to understand whether the BNCC can be appropriated by school subjects as an instrument of emancipation or whether it tends to reinforce logics of standardization and control. The guiding question is: how can Freire’s perspective of critical, dialogical, and transformative education challenge and reframe the BNCC in order to contribute to the development of critical thinking, autonomy, and citizenship awareness in Brazilian basic education? This is a qualitative study (Minayo, 2007), bibliographic and descriptive (Gil, 2008), with an analytical, critical-comprehensive approach (Weber, 1949). Theoretically, it is based on the works of Freire (1959; 1992; 1997; 2011; 2013; 2014; 2015; 2017) and the BNCC, while dialoguing with the contributions of Freire and Macedo (2011), Freire and Guimarães (2011; 2013; 2014), Freire and Faundez (2013), Giroux (1988; 1997; 2024; 2025), Apple (1999; 2001), Libâneo (1990), Saviani (2008; 2021), Silva (2005; 2016), Schugurensky and Bailey (2014), among others. Based on the findings, it can be affirmed that although the BNCC is a relevant normative framework, it presents limits that must be critically challenged to avoid reducing education to mere technical prescription. Freire’s pedagogy, by valuing dialogue, autonomy, and critical awareness, offers ways to reframe the document, transforming it into a starting point rather than an endpoint. It became evident that the BNCC can gain emancipatory meaning when appropriated by school subjects in living and contextualized pedagogical practices. Thus, the articulation between BNCC and Freire reveals both tensions and possibilities for reinvention.