The Role of pedagogical Relationships in the Construction of Citizenship

Abstract

The school, understood as an institutional setting, plays a fundamental role as provider of education rights among children and adolescents. It is a space where knowledge and power relationships between students and teachers are (re)produced, exchanged and replicated. This study aims to understand how teachers and students exchange knowledge and (re)produce power relationships in school. We drew upon qualitative methodology, and the dimensions of analysis were: Pedagogical Relationships, Child Protagonism, and School-Citizenship. Participants were female and male students aged 10-11 and female and male teachers, all of them from a Chilean public school. Following our qualitative approach, we conducted focus groups and used dialectical techniques. Results show that, in school, child protagonism is mainly related to an inside-the-classroom space, extending and amplifying its academicist ways of participation to the out-of-the-classroom space, where possibilities, which may promote and/or hinder the occurrence of Child protagonism, coexist. Furthermore, based on widespread pedagogical relationship styles, three teacher types were identified: motivator, affective and disciplinary. Finally, we observed that citizenship is (re)produced in infantilized spaces, were childhood is conceived as a social moratorium. The recurrence of the adult-centered paradigm, the pseudo-protagonism and their relationship with the practice of child citizenship are further discussed.