LIVING TOGETHER AT SCHOOL AND THE TASK OF BUILDING ENGAGED CITIZENS FOR THE COMMUNITY: AN ANALYSIS OF PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Contemporary educators cannot forget their task of contributing to build a participatory, critical and responsible citizenship. In this sense, educators have to continue their support of schools as the ideal place where students can absorb democratic values. Now that the Spanish Constitution recognizes education as a tool towards achieving a democratic coexistence, the objective of this essay is to evaluate previous models and to propose and give form to the new challenges that ‘living together’ at schools can pose to our societies in the 21st century. METHOD. To achieve this goal, we have chosen as a methodological frame a documental analysis of several legislative sources, including syllabi, projects, plans and other legislative actions that have been carried out in the last three decades in the Spanish context. RESULTS. Through our analysis, we have been able to perceive a clear evolution where newer concepts contrast with previous, more static and theoretical conceptualizations of “living together” at schools. Our current analysis stresses broad and more dynamic tendencies and aims to surpass the strict frame of the classroom.We want to emphasize that the classroom is more than a place to learn; learning to negotiate how to live together should be the main objective of our educational projects. DISCUSSION. We want to strengthen the pillars that sustain this new pedagogical model. This objective has necessarily to focus on new challenges that the immediate future brings forth. Among the strategies discussed are a proposal to make the protocols designed for the “coexistence plans” more dynamic, the development of all the educational potential of mediation, and establishing a new way to frame this discussion in the curricular model of “teaching through competences”.