Schools as a representation of the territory. Spaces of subjectivation of childhood in contexts of violence and their implications for local development from the field of education

Abstract

When speaking about schools as territory we refer to spaces of coexistence, learning, interaction, and dialogue, and recognize girls and boys as participating subjects with freedom of expression, a voice and a vote. However, their rights have been violated and we cannot continue building daily practices that make children invisible. Although the contexts of violence involve parents, managers and teachers as well as the social environment itself, students spend more time in school, where they show negative attitudes and/or behavior. Nowadays, the manifestations of violence are multiple and must be addressed urgently in all schools and among all actors in the educational community. This paper shows some results from my Master's degree thesis in Local Development, conducted in a public primary school in San Cristóbal de Las Casas during the 2021-2022 school year immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of analyzing the relationships that girls and boys establish within the school environment around violence. I view the school as a representation of the territory of childhood, which structures a substantive part of the socialization process, to understand its implications for local development through the field of education. The qualitative methodological process of the research was developed from the ethnographic approach using the techniques: non-participant and participant observation, semi-structured interviews and the drawing-interview technique as reflective dialogue devices for girls and boys in fifth and sixth grade of primary school. which involved analyzing relationships in situations of school violence.