The transformation of the curriculum in the Linking Worlds Dialogic Pedagogy

Abstract

Dialogic Pedagogy of the "Linking Worlds" is characterized by forming community classrooms incorporating a diversity of community agents who join to transform the official school curriculum in Chilean public schools. The participatory action research we report in this article was developed in two of these classrooms, one in the cultural context of a mining community and the other in a rural cultural context. The action research project aimed to make their local cultures visible in the school curriculum. Our objective was to systematize the knowledge and practices of the people who are part of community classrooms and determine whether these contributions managed to challenge the official curriculum structure. We achieved our objective in a four-year study involving 76 participants in dialogical conversations and collective dialogues. Throughout the study, we collected audiovisual records. We identified two areas of knowledge and practices that transform the official curriculum: the corporeality-affectivity and community areas. In addition, it was possible to verify that although the themes nominally coincided, the curricular transformations differed depending on the local characteristics of each classroom. These local curricular transformations promote the advancement of dialogic pedagogy because in such decisions and through egalitarian dialogue, debates, disputes, etc., different participants’ voices are heard in each community classroom. In addition, these transformations keep the debate and interpretation of school curricular contents open.