This 1968 book by Brazilian author Paulo Friere is considered one of the pillars of the critical pedagogy movement, which aimed to apply critical theory to the study of culture. The methodology in the text aims to empower illiterate and impoverished individuals around the world, but takes on an especially relevant role in the analysis of the lower economic classes of the United States and Western Europe, the size and presence of which have been accepted as a norm. In this first chapter, Friere outlines the need for pedagogy, and states the steps by which the oppressed can regain their humanity.