Session Information
25 SES 10, Citizenship: Views, Acts and Contestations
Paper Session
Contribution
The development of democracy in Western societies has brought to light new ideas, new values which stresses citizenship as a practice of collaboration, with possibility of intervention and decision making (Sarmento,T. 2009). Outlining a relationship between citizenship and citizenship education, Ichilov (2003) highlights the potential that education has in the development and maintenance of democratic regimes in a changing world and schools as the place where democratic citizens emerge from. Access to education should bear an epistemological process of building and preparing for change, in which the pupil is presented as a partner in the development processes of schools and communities (Rui d'Espiney, 2008). Assuming that the practice of citizenship imply meaningful involvement of pupils in an owned and cooperative space (Fletcher, 2005; Sarmento, T. 2009), they are considered as co-constructors of knowledge, identity and culture, they have agency, they have a voice and should be taken into account in a democratic dialogue and decision making (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 1999; Sarmento, T. 2009). With different forms of political participation it is recognized that young people have social competence, as potential partners of adults, in the social reconstruction of public spaces (Madeira, R., 2008).The first studies of political socialization suggest the existence of a pre-political stage characterized by an undifferentiated view of society, authority and government (Connell, 1971; Moore et al., 1985). According to Berti (2005), children, at the pre-school age, could build a set of interrelated concepts in the context of personal relationships within the family, kindergarten and peer groups that perspective the emergence of political concepts. These are concepts of rules, authority and personal issues which are respectively the background of the concepts of law, political authority, civil rights and individual rights as understood limitations of government authority. At the beginning of schooling, pupils have already developed these concepts in the context of authority relationships in which they participate (Laupa & Turiel, 1993). Adelson (1968) notes that adolescence is marked by rapid growth in the understanding of political ideas and associate this changes in political though to the cognitive maturation. Recent investigations with adolescents and young adults refer that education policy, integration in civic and political movements and opportunities to discuss, are associated to a greater involvement during adulthood in social and political activities (Berti, 2005; Sherrod, Flanagan & Youniss, 2002).
In this paper, we present a case study that puts into perspective the potential of pupils (between 5 and 14 years) in the exercise of an active and participatory citizenship and the perceptions that their teachers have, at different levels of basic education, about the exercise of citizenship and participation by young pupils. Recognizing children and young people as political actors in their own right and the school as a space of citizenship and a democratic space (Puig-Rovira, 2000; Stoer, 1994), we will be able to promote in the new generations skills for a more active participation in civil society (Menezes et al, 2005).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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