The Systematization of Experiences: From Popular Education to Critical Extension Revealing an Interweaving

Abstract

This essay argues that the relationship between Popular Education (PE) and the Systematization of Experiences (SE) can be fully extended to Critical Extension (CE), a counter-hegemonic approach to university engagement rooted in Freirean and participatory traditions. The text unfolds in three parts. First, it outlines CE and its foundational links to PE, showing how both rely on dialogical, horizontal learning and on the co-production of knowledge between academic and popular actors. Second, it conceptualizes SE as a methodological practice that enables critical reflection on action, allowing practitioners to reconstruct processes, identify key moments, and transform experience into shared, situated knowledge. SE thus becomes central to CE, where praxis requires continuous theoretical–methodological coherence and collective meaning-making. Finally, the essay examines how PE, CE, and SE form an interwoven braid that strengthens universities’ social commitment while challenging dominant research paradigms marked by ‘paperization’, and meritocratic hierarchies. By foregrounding dialogue, interdisciplinarity, and the participation of diverse actors, SE supports CE’s political project: reorienting university teaching and research toward socially relevant problems, democratizing knowledge production, and fostering popular protagonism.