His four-and-a-half year stay in Chile impacted him intellectually, pedagogically, and ideologically, and contributed significantly to the theory and analysis he presents in Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

[4] In Freire's own words:When I wrote [Pedagogy of the Oppressed] I was already completely convinced of the problem of social classes.

In addition, I wrote this book on the basis of my extensive experience with peasants in Chile; being absolutely convinced of the process of ideological hegemony and what that meant.

When I would hear the peasants speaking, I experienced the whole problem of the mechanism of domination (which I analyze in the first chapter of the book)...Certainly, in my earliest writings I did not make this explicit, because I did not perceive it yet as such...[Pedagogy of the Oppressed] is also completely situated in a historical reality.

[8]: 30 [9] As one critic, John D. Holst, describes it:In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire expresses a maturing Marxist-influenced analysis of the political nature of education that clearly places literacy and critical education within the context of the struggle of the oppressed to go beyond capitalist modernization and toward a revolutionary transformation.

[1]: 37  Freire's intended audience is radicals—people who see the world as changing and fluid—and he admits that his argument will most likely be missing necessary elements to construct pedagogies in given material realities.

[1]: 37–39  Basing his method of finding freedom on the poor and middle class's experience with education, Freire states that his ideas are rooted in reality—not purely theoretical.

[1] Upon its release, Pedagogy of the Oppressed had an immediate impact on the field of educational studies in the United States.

In 1971 it was already described as "a small classic of pedagogical theory", and awarded a "high status" in academic circles.

[6]: 127 Shortly after its release, Edgar Z. Friedenberg wrote that the book's weaknesses were its "pedantic style, the consistent underestimate of the opposition and the very peculiar avoidance of Freire's own extensive experience as a source of illustrative material".

Friedenberg said that a positive aspect of the book was Freire's recognition that formal education in the Brazilian setting is "counter-revolutionary and oppressive".

[12] Tyson Lewis similarly said that "Freire himself clearly saw his pedagogy as a tool to be used within revolutionary organization to mediate the various relationships between the oppressed and the leaders of resistance.

"[13] Freire was criticized by feminists for his use of sexist language in Pedagogy of the Oppressed,[6]: 127–128 [14] and it was revised for the 1995 edition to avoid sexism.

[15] In his introduction to the 30th anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Donaldo Macedo, a former colleague of Freire and University of Massachusetts Boston professor, called the book a revolutionary text, and said that people in totalitarian states risk punishment for reading it.

Clandestine copies of the book were distributed underground as part of the "ideological weaponry" of various revolutionary groups like the Black Consciousness Movement.

[16] In 2006, Pedagogy of the Oppressed came under criticism over its use by the Mexican American Studies Department Program at Tucson High School.

In 2010, the Arizona State Legislature passed House Bill 2281, enabling the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction to restrict state funding to public schools with ethnic studies programs, effectively banning the programs.

Tom Horne, who was Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction at the time, criticized the programs for "teaching students that they are oppressed".

[17] The book was among seven titles officially confiscated from Mexican American studies classrooms, sometimes in front of students, by the Tucson Unified School District after the passing of HB 2281.

[18] In a 2009 article for the conservative City Journal, Sol Stern wrote that Pedagogy of the Oppressed ignores the traditional touchstones of Western education (e.g. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, or Maria Montessori) and contains virtually none of the information typically found in traditional teacher education (e.g., no discussion of curriculum, testing, or age-appropriate learning).

On the contrary, Freire rejects traditional education as "official knowledge" that intends to oppress.

[20] A 2019 article in British internet magazine Spiked said that "In 2016, the Open Syllabus Project catalogued the 100 most requested titles on its service by English-speaking universities: the only Brazilian on its list was Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.