Doctoral Thesis Defence

On the 15^th of December, Gerardo Octavio Muñoz Troncoso defended his doctoral thesis titled "Family and community participation in the design and development of a school curriculum in contexts of socio-cultural diversity" within the framework of the Doctoral Program in Education of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. The thesis was directed by Dr. Miquel Àngel Essomba Gelabert. Dr. Carlos Jiménez (U. Autónoma de Madrid), as chairman, professor José Antonio Jordán (UAB), as secretary and professor Andrés Escarbajal (Universidad de Murcia) as a vowel, participated in the defence court.

The research problem of this thesis is the family and community participation in the design and curriculum development in schools located in contexts of sociocultural diversity associated with involuntary minority groups. This raises the challenge of incorporating elements of family education into school education processes as collaborative objects for the articulation of the family-school-community triad. Thus, to overcome the detriments of monocultural education in this context.

The theoretical framework addresses the process of involuntary minorization and its implications in the educational and social development of the subjects belonging to Mapuche communities, Chile, and the gypsies in Spain. In the same way, the school curriculum is analysed in the framework of formal education and the intercultural educational approach as a response to the socio-cultural diversity of the educational scenarios. Finally, a theoretical analysis of the family and community participation in the curricular management is made, and the meaning of the definition of an object of collaboration from an intercultural and educational approach.

This study is based on the methodology of qualitative educational research with an ethnographic approach, considering as study contexts the schooling of the Mapuche population in La Araucanía in Chile and the Gypsy population in Catalonia, Spain. An intentional sampling was considered, allowing to select a school of primary education in each context, covering in each the educational, community and family environment. Data collection techniques used were: field notes, semi-structured interviews and focus groups, being analysed by the grounded theory.

Results of this research indicate the existence of significant differences between the conception and operationalization of family and community participation in curricular design and development in Mapuche and Gypsy contexts. These differences are related to the dynamics of resistance that these groups have developed in their interaction with the greater society. On one hand, the Mapuches assume school success as a necessity, in order to overcome the impoverishment, they have experienced in their incorporation to the Chilean State. On the other hand, the gypsies maintain a distance and low valuation of 'the school thing' and the formation of a sociocultural identity in opposition to the dominant one. However, for young families, this is a changing event, as they begin to see in the school education a possibility of improving their quality of life by accessing to formal jobs.

In both contexts, detriments of monocultural schooling are highlighted. This would directly affect the marginalization of the family and community of school processes, emphasizing the need to apply an intercultural model of family and community participation in the curricular management. This is possible through the definition of an object of collaboration that considers elements of the family education of involuntary minorities. Finally, through the discussion of the results, the central axes for family and community participation in the design and curriculum development in the school education of involuntary minority groups, from a critical intercultural educational approach, are highlighted.