Territorial Identity and School Environmental Social Practices

Abstract

This article presents the first results of a research developed with the objective of tracing the contributions in territorial identity and environmental social practices, specifically the results of an activity called pictorial representations of the territory. The methodology is developed within the framework of a qualitative paradigm with the participation of a group of fourth grade students from a public educational institution in Soacha, Colombia. They created graphic representations of the territories that were analyzed from the identification of identity traits that are at the base of the children's life experiences, as well as their longings about the territory as a general category. The subcategories tangible and intangible were used as characteristics of the territory and environmental social practices as a binding character. The results indicate that in terms of the lived territory, the ideas of happiness and inequality converge; in relation to the dreamed territory, the notions of balance and coexistence coexist; and, in relation to the real territory, the ideas of inaction and otherness intersect. In addition, the tangible and intangible aspects of the territory are differentiated for each of the territories, thus, in the case of the dreamed territory harmonic representations are observed, in the real territory there is an imbalance in the representation, and in the lived territory there is a variety of representations in relation to the territorial origins of the students. The above allowed re vealing and arousing identity ties through the connection between the territories that surround the children's experiences and empowering transforming ideas that make possible a dreamed territory.