The World is emerging on the current relevance of Paulo Freire.

Paulo Freire was the most outstanding popular educator in Brazil and founder of pedagogy of liberation and a mass movement for adult alphabetization. His educational approach based on raising the consciousness (Conscientização) links action to reflection. This article analyses the contribution of Freire's posture and worldview for current development studies and education. The following arguments are presented in four sections: Firstly, reading the world is a critical undertaking to understand the reality based on dialogue, dialectics and a contextualized and problem-oriented approach. Secondly writing the world is acting in a world structured by domination and oppression which calls for a non-dualistic approach that links agency and structure and ethics and rationality in an attempt of overall democratization. Section three is dedicated to case studies which aim at contextualizing Freire's approach for Vienna in the 21st century. Section four summarizes the arguments, focusing on its implications for development studies by pursuing the traditions introduced by Pierre Bourdieu and Roy Bhaskar.