Obstacles and challenges of citizenship education in rural schools of the colombian caribbean. A school ethnography

Abstract

This study shows preliminary results of a research focused on interpreting and understanding the ethical-political and pedagogical sense of citizenship education. The investigation was performed in three rural educational institutions of the Colombian Caribbean. By means of the qualitative approach was developed an ethnography of school, which various data collection techniques were used, such as, participant observation, semi-structured individual interviews, focus group, social and pedagogical cartography, group discussion and review of institutional documents. Accordingly the findings demonstrated that: a) the liberal democracy model has achieved hegemony in the West, it presents a deep crisis in rural areas, b) it is required from school to insist on the formation of a participatory rural citizenship as a means of empowering rural communities in the intervention on public, and redefinition of democracy system, c) power inequalities evident in the totalitarian administration exerted by rectors, and pedagogical practices authoritarian that are still developing some rural teachers, discourage the formation of a democratic school culture, and d) the peasants students have serious difficulties in the application of their moral and political autonomy, which inhibits them will behave like real social and political actors