La cultura de participación en los centros de secundaria : un estudio de casos en la Agenda 21 escolar

This book analyses and finely breaks down the process of participation in schools, breaking down and breaking down its parts, making its elements, characteristics and mechanisms understandable. The author reveals the process in all its components and qualities, in such a way that it allows us to become aware of its existence, its quality, its requirements, the paths to take. To this end, she offers a battery of “good, pretty and cheap” instruments that facilitate the assessment of the quality of participatory processes. Participation is investigated as a “political practice” within the framework of the Agenda 21 school programme in Barcelona, in six secondary schools. It is evident that “you learn to participate by participating” and that schools can contribute to forming good citizens who care about group interests, about social and political commitment; because by promoting participation in educational centres, the soft side of the democratic system is built, forming citizens capable of making their voice heard, of making decisions, of acting to produce real changes. Only in this way are we educating ourselves to escape the closed loop in which the unsustainable side of globalization has trapped us.