Abstract
The doctoral thesis titled ”The discursive construction of eco-citizenship competence in primary education through collaborative technological design in a school agroecological garden” aims to explore the development of the eco-citizenship competence in the school food garden, and the collaborative technological design activities in particular. For this purpose, and in a collaborative way with a teacher, a didactical intervention in a primary school was designed. The students had to design and build the watering system in the school food garden through ten activities. In order to analyze the discursive construction of the eco-citizenship competence in two of the didactical intervention activities, five research questions have been defined focused on different components of this competence.
The first question is related to the watering system design process, this means, to the technological action design. The construction and evolution of the design proposals, conflicts and agreements on the watering system have been analyzed. The results show that students tend to integrate elements from different design proposals that are not contrary or mutually exclusive.
The second question seeks to characterize the argumentative discourse constructed in a collaborative technological design process in the school food garden. We want to learn about the structure of the argumentative design on the one hand, and the dynamics of the argumentation during the intervention, on the other. The results show that there are differences between the argumentative structure and dynamics in scientific argumentative activities and the argumentative activities in technological design due to the differences in goals and requests.
The third question is based on the garden model that is discursively constructed in a collaborative technological design process in the school garden as part of the school agroecology. The results indicate that design conflicts that appear between the different technological proposals and the need of providing a context for the watering system design promotes the evolution of a more dynamic and complex food garden. The development of the eco-citizenship competence in the school garden is not only related to the construction of a garden model but also to a participation model. That is the reason why in the fourth question we consider the way the participation model in a collaborative technological design process in a school garden is constructed and the way it develops. The results reveal that a collaborative watering system design has been a great opportunity to build a more democratic participation model.
Finally, we are interested in the roll the teacher plays in this process. Thus, in the fifth research question we analyze the teacher’s roll in the collaborative design process of the watering system in the school garden. The results of this analysis show the teacher’s roll is essential because it orientates the discursive construction of the two models and it helps developing a more complex food garden approach and a more democratic way of participation.
From these results we conclude that acting in a school garden as a preferential field of the school food system means the construction of actions that often fit perfectly in the technological field. The critical orientation of actions at school leads to the introduction of the collaborative technological design as a good framework to learn how to understand things in a more complex way and participate in a more democratic way. This paper provides evidences that proof that technology can build a good context to develop the students eco-citizenship competence in primary school in order to intervene in their environment and to do so in a collaborative dimension and with democratic values.
Thesis full reference
Rekondo, Miren. (2015). The discursive construction of eco-citizenship competence in primary education through collaborative technological design in a school agroecological garden. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Departament de Didàctica de la Matemàtica i de les Ciències Experimentals. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Retrievable from http://hdl.handle.net/10803/328427
Publications related to the dissertation
Rekondo, M., Espinet, M., & Fitó, A. (2012). Las asambleas de huerto como herramienta para trabajar la toma de decisiones en Educación para la Sostenibilidad. (Food garden assembly as a tool for decision making in education for sustainability in primary education). In Domínguez Castiñeiras, J.M. (Ed.) Actas 25 Encuentro de Didáctica de las Ciencias Experimentales, Santiago de Compostela, España: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, pp 733-739.
(https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/poncom/2012/133092/XXVEDCE_2012_Rekondo_espinet_Fito.pdf)
Rekondo, M.; Espinet, M. y Llerena, G. (2015). La construccion discursiva de la competencia eco-ciudadana en la escuela: La realizacion de un diseno tecnológico colaborativo en agroecología escolar (The discursive construction of ecociticenship competence in primary school: The making of a collaborative technological design in school agroecology). Revista Investigación en la Escuela, 86, 1-19 (http://www.investigacionenlaescuela.es/articulos/R86/R86-1.pdf)
Correspondance
e-mail: miren.rekondo@gmail.com
