Building democratic convivencia in Mexican schools surrounded by violence

• In Event: Round-Table Session 3
  In Round-table Session: Building Democratic Peace Through Handling Conflict in Schools? Evidence from México, Colombia, Bangladesh, and Canada

Proposal

Pedagogies for democratic convivencia in classrooms include building inclusive, equitable and participatory practices, capacities and relationships, through pedagogical practices that foster safe and caring environments (Hirmas & Eroles, 2008; Hevia, 2009b; Morrison & Vaandering, 2012 ), that enhance students’ protagonist role in their own learning process (Díaz-Aguado, 2002; Magendzo, 2003; Dussel, 2005), that share power and practice dealing with conflict in positive ways (Bickmore, 2011b, 2013; Martínez-Otero, 2005). In other words, democratic convivencia is another term for peacebuilding.
This multiple-case study examined how three purposively selected Mexican teachers (fifth and sixth grades) implemented classroom pedagogies designed to foster the development of democratic convivencia in regular urban elementary public schools located in violent neighborhoods, the apparent consequences of these pedagogies for student-participants, and the factors that helped or hindered this process. Based on restorative justice (Morrison & Vaandering, 2012) and social justice theories (Fraser, 2003, 2005) applied to education, I propose three dimensions of pedagogies for building democratic convivencia: inclusion, equity, and conflict (resolution) dialogue. Data included 23 observations in classrooms (averaging 90 minutes each), six individual interviews with teachers, and six group interviews with 20 students.
This paper presents some results of this study concerning pedagogies for conflict (resolution) dialogue, one dimension of democratic convivencia pedagogy. Conflict (resolution) dialogue pedagogies are intended to facilitate the development of students’ democratic capacities, such as conflict resolution for peacemaking (Bickmore, 2011a) by actively engaging them in discussions (exchanging divergent viewpoints) and/or collective decision-making about (interpersonal and larger-scale) social and political conflicts and how to transform them (Bickmore, 2014; Freire, 1970; Lederach, 1995; Parker, 2010). These democratic capacities are necessary for redressing the visible and root causes of violence, in order to build and sustain democratic convivencia in schools and in society.
In relation to interpersonal conflicts, this study showed that, even in classrooms with evident patterns of aggression in which gang-affiliated students played a predominant role, it was demonstrably possible for teachers to build relatively safe environments by communicatively addressing the symptoms and some of the causes of students’ conflicts and misconduct, without relying on punishment. All participant teachers addressed the symptoms of students’ disruptive and/or aggressive behaviors by implementing at least some educative peacekeeping –gently guiding students to control their aggressive behaviors (as in Bickmore, 2005)— or merely control-based peacekeeping, as well as some elements of peacemaking (facilitating communication), to deal with students’ conflicts in their classrooms. Simultaneously, all three teachers implemented pedagogies for inclusion and equity, which also may have addressed (to some extent) the root causes of disruptions and violence by their students. In combination, these elements of democratic convivencia pedagogies resulted in a reduction in violence in classroom relationships, according to all interviewed students, compared to their experiences in previous years with other teachers.
More in depth, transformative, peacebuilding-oriented group discussions of local or wider social and political conflicts were practically absent in all three classrooms. Similarly, these three teachers did not offer students opportunities for deliberation or collective-decision making processes. Two notable exceptions were when one teacher (Pilar) conducted a debate (concerning pros and cons about genetically modified food) and another teacher (Lupita) taught a Spanish lesson on writing formal letters to authorities (exposing social problems in students’ neighborhoods). These activities showed the promising possibilities these kinds of pedagogies could offer for the development of students’ argumentative skills and civic awareness, as some students in each class showed understanding of how pluralistic democratic governments are supposed to work and of the significance of developing informed arguments for describing a local problem to authorities.
Despite the scarce opportunities these three teachers offered students for developing democratic conflict (resolution) dialogue capacities, each of them guided students to practice (some) specific peacemaking-relevant abilities, such as: viewpoint sharing, active listening, agency in reaching joint agreements, respectful disagreement, (oral and written) persuasive argumentative skills, analysis of conflicts, as well as critical thinking abilities.
This multiple-case study has demonstrated the potential implications of classroom pedagogies for conflict dialogue and resolution on students’ understandings and dispositions concerning the role of conflict in interpersonal relations and democratic societies. If even these incipient elements of democratic dialogue and peacemaking experiences had a positive impact on some students’ perceptions of their role in making peace and/or as future citizens, we can imagine what sustained democratic dialogue pedagogies, in combination with inclusion and equity, could do for students’ sense of agency towards the social transformation required to construct democratic convivencia in Mexican society.

References

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Bickmore, K. (2011a). Keeping, making and building peace in school. Social Education, 75(1), 40-44.
Bickmore, K. (2011b). Policies and programming for safer schools: Are anti-bullying approaches impeding education for peacebuilding? Educational Policy, 25(4), 648-687.
Bickmore, K. (2013). Circle dialogue processes in elementary classrooms: Locations for restorative and educative work. In H. Cremin, E. Sellman, & G. McCluskey (Eds.), Restorative approaches to conflict in schools (pp. 309–324). London: Routledge.
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Morrison, B., & Vaandering, D. (2012). Restorative justice: Pedagogy, praxis, and discipline. Journal of School Violence, 11(2), 138–155.
Parker, W. (2010). Listening to strangers: Classroom discussion in democratic education. Teachers College Record, 112(11), 2815–2832.

Author

• M. Patricia Carbajal, OISE, University of Toronto