Analysis of the education for citizenship in rural schools of the colombian caribbean: an school etnography

Abstract

This paper shares the preliminary results of a research focused on interpreting and understanding the ethical-political and pedagogical senses of the education for citizenship in three rural educational institutions in the Colombian Caribbean. Within the qualitative approach, an ethnography of school is developed, in which various techniques for gathering information –such as participant observation, semi-structured individual interviews, focus group, social and educational cartography, discussion group and the review of institutional documents– are combined. The first findings of the study show that: 1. The model of liberal democracy, that has achieved hegemony in the West, presents a deep crisis in rural areas. 2. It is required from school to insist on the formation of a participatory rural citizenship as a mechanism for empowerment of rural communities in the intervention on public and redefinition of the democratic system. 3. The power inequalities evident in the totalitarian administration, exercised by principals and authoritarian pedagogical practices that are still developing some rural teachers, discourage building a school democratic culture. 4. Peasants students have serious difficulties in the exercise of their moral and political autonomy, preventing them to behave like real social and political actors.