La enseñanza de conocimientos políticos en el Área de Ciencias Sociales de la Educación Básica y Media en Antioquia y Cundinamarca: una investigación en torno a sus finalidades, sus contenidos y sus métodos

Abstract

The research project “The teaching of political knowledge in the Social Sciences Area of Basic and Secondary Education in Antioquia and Cundinamarca: an search into its aims, contents and methods” was carried out between 2014 and 2018. It is an Educational Research Project because it aims to contribute to the improvement of the teaching practices involved in teaching political knowledge in the context of mandatory education, and to teacher training processes. The goal of the research project was to find out what happens in Colombian classrooms in the context of mandatory education when political knowledge is taught. Conducting this research was justified since it is essential to identify the teaching practices adopted by the active teaching staff in order to contribute to the qualification of teacher training practices. In this case, we tried to study the teaching practices involved in teaching political knowledge. The research was guided by three questions meant to study the purposes, contents and methods for teaching political knowledge in the Social Sciences Area in the context of mandatory education in Colombia. The goal was to describe and interpret what was said and done by a group of teachers in the Colombian departments of Antioquia and Cundinamarca while they were teaching political knowledge to students. Specifically, we sought to describe and interpret what these teachers said regarding the purposes they wished to achieve, the contents they taught, and the methods they used. The theoretical model was that of Emancipatory Education and Action Research. The method was empirical, inductive, with a qualitative and applied focus. The population was the teaching staff of the Social Sciences Area for Elementary and Middle School in Colombia. According to the National Education Ministry, the teaching staff was composed of 18.508 teachers, 945 of which were in Antioquia and 686 in Cundinamarca. The sample consisted of 10 female teachers and 5 male teachers. They were selected by using three non-probability sampling methods: intentional, purposive, and snowball. By department, 10 teachers from Antioquia and 5 from Cundinamarca participated in the study. They were in the 26-46 age range, with most of them in the 26-35 age range. They taught at the elementary and middle levels in 14 co-ed educational centers with face-to-face classes, 11 of them of public nature and 3 of private nature, located in 7 municipalities, 5 of them in Antioquia and 3 in Cundinamarca. The research stages were identification of the purposes, contents and teaching methods by the research professor; those of reflection and proposal were carried out with the participating teachers. Information was obtained by means of a survey that characterized the teachers and their educational practices using close-ended, semi-closed, and open questions. The results showed that the teaching of political knowledge shows strengths in its purposes, must improve the selection of contents, and requires strengthening of the teaching methods. The strengthening of these methods should be coherent with the purposes and contents. Besides, it should be coherent with the idea that the teaching of political knowledge in the Social Sciences Area should stop focusing on the disciplinary, chronological, and thematic aspects, and on the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its orientation toward civic instruction, and should instead focus on transdisciplinary, diachronic and problem-oriented methods, on the support of secular academic environments and on educating students to exercise a citizenship that allows them to participate actively in the politic domain in order to build a democratic system.

Date of Award	20 Nov 2018
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Joan Pages Blanch (Director)