Participation at school: A not so distant utopia. A proposal framed in the Spanish education system

Abstract

Today's society increasingly values collective decision-making processes and requires more participatory citizens. However, these citizens do not always have the necessary training tools so that participation is real and effective, which makes it fundamental to promote the participatory culture from the school. The document first presents a brief study of the concepts of participation and child participation, as well as the status of legal protection of the latter and the main existing models for its measurement, the Roger Hart staircase, and the Novella and Trilla proposal. It is proposed, next, a sequence of activities to be developed by students of 6th grade of Primary Education in the Spanish education system during an academic year. With the proposal, flexible and adaptable to other Primary Education courses or to the first cycle of Secondary Education in the same education system, the aim is to promote, in an orderly and systematic way, the participatory competences of the students, providing them with specific tools for their present and future social and civic participation.