Educação urbana e cidadania crítica : da relação sujeito-cidade e suas potencialidades

Abstract

This research is part of the thematic field of urban education and its various forms of expression in the city. Thus, it is appropriate to perceive the complexity of the contemporary city, a space which brings forth diversity, information, contradictions and potentialities. Since the individuals interact in coexisting contexts and at the same time in multiple and different spaces, the city has an educational potentiality which can contribute to the learning of the individual in his everyday life. Indeed, the goal of this research is to understand the urban education in its various forms of expression in the urban environment as a possible path to get an active and critical citizenship. A qualitative and applied theoretical approach has been used, as well as a dialectical way of methodological approach, since the urban education has to be considered in its various aspects, relationships and connections. Regarding the classification, this research is descriptive and exploratory. About the technical procedures, it is basically bibliographical and documentary. The premises of urban education are based on learning about the city, learn in the city and learn from the city, which are understood from the point of view of the sociological background from Boaventura de Sousa Santos and the Principle of Hope from Ernst Bloch. Considering the dynamic urban processes and its many educational practices, the individual lives in a symbolical and existential urban environment and produces meanings and knowledge through experience. Since the city is a space for an active and critical citizenship, it is inferred that urban education opens a horizon of possibilities that has been growing stronger in recent years.