Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article identifies the conceptual approach of citizenship and citizen participation present in the Citizenship Education’s curriculum of Costa Rican secondary education. To achieve this goal, it has been developed a document analysis. The process started with a general reading of the document, to establish the presence or absence of the analysis units, these allows the comprehension of the theory farther than the democratic institutional perspective. Later, it was identified the frequency of the concepts, stablished by two dimensions a theorical and a practical dimensions. This comparative process showed a memorization trend, related to citizenship and citizen participation, in the expected learning of the school curriculum.

This article points out the results of an investigation in which the conceptual and methodological notions about historical time were described and analyzed by the Social Studies teachers of the San José Norte Regional Office, and their relationship with the development of skills in the students, during 2021 and 2022, through a mixed methodology. A questionnaire was applied to 58 teachers where the conceptual domain of twenty-one concepts linked to historical time was identified. In order to investigate the methodological notions, a qualitative questionnaire was applied to twelve teachers and three semi-structured interviews, information that was compared with the observations of their lessons. The main results of the research were: 89.2% of the teachers participating in the research demonstrated an intermediate command of the concepts linked to historical time. On the other hand, a contrast was found between the discourse of the teachers, where they showed a mastery of methodological notions, with the lessons. In the latter, less clarity and a deficient knowledge of the methodology were observed, predominantly a didactics from a content transmission perspective and oriented to a great extent to memorization and repetition. The main conclusion was that the conceptual and methodological mastery levels presented by teachers are not enough to determine if it is possible to achieve the development of skills linked to historical time in the group of students.

The objective of this article is to describe the influence of Social Representations on the territory, personal experiences and geographical thought in the initial teacher training of students of I and IV level of the career in Teaching of Social Studies and Civic Education of the National University of Costa Rica. It was based on the approaches on the Social Representations of the Classical School to understand how they are built and what elements intervene. The methodology used was based on the qualitative paradigm and the phenomenological-constructivist approach that allowed analyzing the subjectivities of the study subjects in the process of knowledge construction. It was concluded on the need to transform the teaching of geography in the career, implementing practical methodologies that approach the materiality of geographical thought. Likewise, the implementation of the territory was raised as an integrating axis in Social Studies.

The implementation of the competency-based curriculum with the introductory axis is a response to the country's needs for a qualitative change in first-year students, who need to become familiar with both the university and the competency-based curriculum, which began to be applied in the universities in Nicaragua in 2021. The systematization of the experiences was done with the purpose of finding the strengths and weaknesses both in the new curriculum and in the process of its implementation. The article is the result of the pedagogical practice developed in 35 first-year groups of different modalities and shifts of the Regional Multidisciplinary Faculty, Matagalpa of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, Managua (UNAN-Managua). The research was carried out with the mixed approach, developing the survey techniques for teachers and direct observations. The analysis of the results of the implementation of the axis with its four components was applied through the systematization of the experiences in each classroom. It is concluded that a high level of performance will be improved, an enriching experience of teamwork, student interest in the career, appropriation with UNAN Managua, interest in learning to learn, applying creativity, developing innovations and undertaking.

With the purpose of strengthening the development of geographic skills in students, the design and application of the strategy "Active Pause: Let's read the space!" follow the guide of the Place-Based Learning (PBL) theory. The strategy proposes to validate the relationships that the students have built with their immediate environment and transfer them to the academic learning scenario, thus recognizing an opportunity to evaluate the understanding of the curricular contents reviewed during the class and to position the students as agents of construction and transformation of their territoriality. The proposal identified a student role that make them active and necessary, and a teaching role of guidance and accompaniment, where formative evaluation takes special prominence in a scenario of undeniable curricular flexibility, understanding that spatial readings are made from the autonomy and immediate experience of the students.

A study on the use of cinema in the subject of Social Studies is presented, which had the purpose of describing the use of cinema for the explanation and interpretation of historical processes, by Social Studies teachers that encourages the construction of critical thinking in the student body The research started from various theoretical-methodological considerations where the effectiveness of cinema in the teaching and learning processes of history is shown, in which the construction of critical thinking and historical awareness is manifested. Through a qualitative study of the phenomenological paradigm, with the focus group technique, the need for educational transformations was shown, such as the use of cinema for the explanation of historical processes, since through said tool it distances the recurrence of common teaching practices such as the use of textbooks, among others.The main finding of the research was the use of various strategies that enable a historical education in the student body such as cinema.

Development of technology and science has brought about dizzying changes; however, they do not always put themselves at service of humanity. Today it is much more dangerous what technologies can do in unscrupulous hands. A theme has emerged that has the purpose of exposing the effects of the semiotic bombardment that humankind receives. Several texts appear on the manipulation of emotions. The article aims to delve into this topic and provide a vision that contributes to alert people on the consequences of manipulation. The methodology used is qualitative, with inductive-deductive, synthetic-analytical methods based on the cultural-historical approach. As descriptors that serve as a common thread of the study process are selected: processes that impact the human being, citizen education and responsible critical reflection. The results provide a framework where the descriptors are related and it is concluded that to counteract the situation it is not enough to prevent its influence, but rather it requires the development of the personality.

Taking critical-decolonial thinking as a reference, a theoretical review is made of the curricular policies in Intercultural Education developed in Costa Rica during the last decades; with the objective of problematizing the methods selected for their design and execution, while opening a theoretical debate from the teachers' collective around the hegemonic character of the contents that the Official Curriculum intends to transmit. In line with the proposed objectives, this theoretical essay is based on the technique of content analysis, to demonstrate that the curricular reforms in interculturality are framed within the neoliberal globalization project, whose purpose is the reproduction of historical domination logics, in this case through the official educational systems, under the guise of discourses such as tolerance and inclusion. In view of these scenarios, emphasis is placed on the need to vindicate the role of teachers in the construction of collective proposals that respond to the diversities present in the country's educational communities.

Interview with Carlos Bolaños, teacher of Social Studies in high school and at the School of History, Universidad Nacional, in which he addresses the issue of pedagogy related to culture and the formation of critical citizenship that responds to the demands of today's society. The paper is a tribute to the work and contributions of Professor Bolaños to Social Studies as a school subject and as a field of research.

Most historians will agree to define this discipline as the science that aims to reconstruct the past of different societies over time, to understand the present and project the future. However, those of us who are dedicated to working in the field of Social Sciences in general and History in particular, find ourselves with two well-marked paths when it comes to “making history”. One of the paths is the one that uses this science as a power tool and in that sense it is loyal to the ideals of each time, to the memories of the minorities, to the silence of the masses. The other is the one that coincides with the idea of education of the Brazilian pedagogue Paulo Freire, History as a liberating tool. Knowledge gives power and freedom, what has history done with it during this time and what will we do to reverse the situation?