K-12 Curricula for Citizenship
The Critical Civic Potential of Elementary Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kathryn Obenchain, Julie L Pennington
Citizenship education is the oft-stated purpose of education in many societies. While what that includes differs across societies, rarely is it approached from a critical perspective. This session focuses on results of a qualitative study on how Critical Democratic Literacy (CDL), which grounds both civic and literacy education in critical theory, was used to develop and implement an integrated social studies and literacy curriculum in a US elementary classroom. The CDL curriculum was designed to address the limited attention to social studies and civic education, combined with a functional approach to literacy present in US elementary classrooms due to an accountability movement narrowly focused on testing of low-level knowledge. The implemented curriculum focused on connecting political and philosophical ideals associated with the founding of the US to current events, as well as students’ own lives. Students began to develop critical literacy skills, as well as historical thinking skills, particularly related to the ethical dimension of historical thinking. Results suggest that the students recognized a civic dimension to their identity. Further, those identities focused on the betterment of their communities through their own agentic behaviors, with an emphasis on issues of fairness, respect, and autonomy. Given the potential of developing more critically minded young citizens, more attention must be paid to curriculum and pedagogical practices that support this development, as well as the preparation of teachers in the relevant content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge across social studies, citizenship education, critical literacy, and integration.
Subjectivity Development Processes in Classroom: Theoretical Alternatives in Understanding Learning Difficulties
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andressa Martins do Carmo de Oliveira
This paper has as its main objective explain the subjective configurational movement in the classroom, considering processes that have led to the emergence of a subjective configuration that became a source of subjective development, which among other things, facilitated learning. To illustrate this objective, a study case of a student in the 1st year of an elementary school in Brasília is presented. The theoretical position on which the research was based was the Theory of Subjectivity, from a cultural-historical standpoint, together with its epistemological and methodological proposition, Qualitative Epistemology and the constructive-interpretative method. The main tools used were conversational dynamics and diverse interactive sessions, which resulted in a dialogical, relational and subjective space, with the aim of following the unique expression of the child in the classroom. The subjective configuration of development that began to take place in the course of the research, allowed to understand many of the participant´s positions, which became active, conquered space in the classroom and engaged in the proposed activities, leading to significant advancements in relation to the learning of reading and writing. The results pointed to a new perspective with regard to learning difficulties, while simultaneously combining unique life histories, conception, experiences and forms of sociability as aspects to be considered from a complex optic, beside narrow, universal and deterministic concepts regarding the child and his/her school development. Therefore, it refers to situate the development process within the student´s everyday life, and not apart from it.
