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The International Relations English program at a university in the north of Colombia is a CLIL-based program. Students share an interest in issues related to rights and politics, both locally and globally. Colombia arrived at a historical juncture with the signing of the peace accords between the government and FARC guerrillas in 2016. However, this coincided with an extreme polarisation of political discourse. This polarisation was evident throughout the 2016 plebiscite on the peace agreements and further intensified in the build-up to the 2018 presidential elections. In response, teachers and students created a web series where students outlined the candidates' critical proposals without revealing the candidates' identities. Students researched the proposals and worked with a teacher to prepare English transcripts of the proposals. Eight videos were created, shared via social media, and made available to local English teachers at secondary and university levels. The project's purpose was to encourage active citizenship and foment a more critical analysis of the candidates' proposals. To achieve this, students utilised the anonymity of the candidates and English as the chief medium of communication. This project allowed teachers to use authentic and relevant student-generated materials to encourage more critical discussion. The students involved in the project reported feelings of political efficacy and civic engagement. Teachers expressed satisfaction at having contextually rich language materials. This project indicates the potential for student-generated materials to provide contextually relevant and highly motivating educational materials.

This work investigates the relationships between community radio and their audiences in the Department of Nariño, Colombia, considering Latin American and European experiences, and participation as a key element for social sustainability. The aim is to investigate whether the participation of citizens in the production, diffusion and radio management has been supported or not. Methodologically, we follow a mixed design that combined the results of two questionnaires: one, applied to 632 people from eleven municipalities; and the second, to eleven directors of communal stations. This was complemented with information provided by eleven groups composed of radio broadcasters, publishers and producers. One key finding within the audiences is that they recognize a radio station as a tool to enhance socio-cultural dynamics in the region. As to the directors of stations, it was found that they didn't encourage active participation with communities. It seems that the absence of active and critical participation on the part of the audiences is due to an organizational and radio production model that mirrors the commercial one. In conclusion, these factors have limited the construction of democratic relations between communal broadcasters and their audiences; and especially, reduced the possibilities for citizens to participate as valid interlocutors in a local communicational project.

The aim of the study is to explore alienated and disaffected students in Latin America and investigate the development of their civic attitudes. The study has focused on a context that is assuming growing importance globally and about which more needs to be known, especially in terms of its potential for democratic development. The focus is on students from Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Mexico. Three distinct groups of students were identified labeled 'Outsiders', 'Moderates', and 'Active Participators'. The 'Outsiders' had lowest scores on all civic values. Gender, parents' political and social interest, students' expected education level and home literacy were the four most important predictors for membership in the 'Outsider' group. Implications and future directions for research on Latin American 'Outsiders' are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to empirically test two major theoretical models: a modified version of the social capital model (Pattie, Seyd and Whiteley, 2003), and the Informed Social Engagement Model (Barr and Selman, 2014; Selman and Kwok, 2010), to explain civic participation and civic knowledge of adolescents from Chile, Colombia and Mexico, using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 (Schulz, et al., 2010). The models were used to identify factors associated with different levels of knowledge and civic participation: expected participation in legal and illegal protests, and electoral participation. Data were analyzed using regression analysis. Results show that the Informed Social Engagement approach (ISEM), explains better the observed differences in civic knowledge and civic participation, than the Social Capital Model (SCM). That is, the expected values associated with the variables included in the ISEM are closer to the observed values, than those predicted by the SCM. This is true for the three outcomes (expected participation in legal protests, illegal protests, and electoral participation) and in the three countries analyzed (Chile, Colombia and Mexico).

The purpose of this study is to examine profiles of students' attitudes toward citizenship norms and inclusiveness in the political process, focusing on changes in the frequency of particular profiles and in the strength of predictors across a decade. Using data from 16 countries participating in the 1999 and 2009 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement civic education studies, we identified five attitudinal profiles. Profiles defined by negative attitudes toward diverse social groups decreased over time, whereas profiles defined by very positive attitudes toward diverse groups increased, particularly in western Europe. Although some post-Communist countries demonstrated trends toward more positive attitudinal profiles, others trended toward profiles defined by weaker citizenship norms. Across countries and cohorts, more positive profiles were associated with stronger school climates and expectations of civic participation.

This study used task-based group interviews with young adolescents in four countries to investigate their understanding of the causes of human rights violations, means for protecting human rights, and their own potential role in ensuring human rights. Although students recognized the role of personal and institutional factors in both violating and protecting human rights, their ideas for influencing human rights focused primarily on the personal contexts with which they were most familiar. Their understanding of political and economic mechanisms was much less elaborate. These findings suggest the need for curricula that equip students with the complex and specialized knowledge that would enable them to engage in a range of meaningful civic action, both in their lives now and as adults.

The educational agenda of indigenous groups is in tension with the expansion of schooling. The authors follow an ethnographic approach to analyse an educational programme that seeks to preserve indigenous knowledges in a megacity. The initiative promotes daily activities with the communities' native educational counsellor called "apoyo pedagógico" and the supervision of the "sabedor" (wiseman). The programme seems to: (1) apply the concept of interculturality insofar as both mestizos and indigenous children learn to recognise each other´s cultural heritage blurred by colonialism; (2) solve the central problem of the lack of bilingual teachers; and (3) prevent potential weaknesses in basic skills often present in ethno-education teacher training programmes in rural areas. Native languages are preserved but the joint design of a curriculum in language, numeracy, arts, nutrition, ethics and political engagement needs to be strengthened. They conclude, reflecting on the institutional stability needed by programmes aiming to protect indigenous cultures threatening to disappear.

The authors investigated to what extent teachers' practices and school characteristics can influence students' civic knowledge, civic attitudes, and future participation in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico and how this can be related to their specific curricular structures and educational content. It uses data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. The results show that in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, teacher practices and attitudes relate to the civic outcomes. Although teachers' practices and attitudes significantly predict students' civic knowledge, this relationship does not seem relevant for students' expected participation and students' attitudes toward diversity. Still, the democratic environment of the school is a relevant variable in the case of expected participation of students and their attitudes toward diversity, which shows a possible indirect influence of teachers through the school environment. The results are discussed in relation to the civic education curriculum in place in the countries analyzed.

Public education is one influence on how young people learn to navigate social conflicts and to contribute to building democratic peace, including their sense of hope or powerlessness. Social studies curricula, in particular, introduce core concerns, geographies, governance and civil society, and participation skills and norms. History education narratives frame identity, (dis)trust or peaceful coexistence, and provide exemplars of how social conflicts and injustice have been handled in the past. To shed light on these peacebuilding and peace-blocking choices, this paper examines government-sanctioned social studies and history curricula in contrasting contexts of violent conflict and peace: Bangladesh, Colombia, México, and (Ontario) Canada. Our comparative analysis shows how these official curricula (de)normalize violence and militarism, present national identities as hegemonic/exclusive or plural/inclusive, and create opportunities for teaching/learning peacebuilding citizenship competencies such as conflict dialog, human rights awareness, and engagement in collective processes of civil society and governance.

What is the relationship between Indigenous peoples and violent reactions to contemporary states? This research explores differing, culturally informed notions of attachment to land or place territory. Mechanistic ties and organic ties to land are linked to a key distinction between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous peoples. Utilizing the Minorities at Risk (MAR) data set, a subset relationship is explored addressing propensity for Indigenous peoples to rebel against state encroachment of their lands. The results of this research must be considered with the serious limitations of MAR in mind. Within the marginalized groups in the Americas, 28 have an attachment to a place territory. Of these 28 groups, 22 are Indigenous and of the 22 groups, 13 have exhibited some form of rebellious behavior between 1945 and 2003. The power of attachment to place territory, specifically the organic attachment most often displayed by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, is a strong tie surviving 500 years of European encroachment. The findings are indicative of an attachment that Indigenous peoples retain to their specific homelands. The findings suggest a plethora of future research questions. (Contains 8 tables, 3 figures, and 41 notes.)

This article is not about local governance of education "per se," but rather whether education can be used as a tool to foster citizen participation, particularly that of women. It examines how education might empower women, who are often excluded from local, regional and national governance, to participate in public life. It draws on data from a qualitative study conducted in Honduras on how the innovative Latin American secondary education programme, "Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial" (SAT), promotes women's empowerment. In this article, the author first describes the SAT programme and the methodology used in this study. She then argues that SAT teaches students how to think critically and imagine a future that is better than the present. SAT also seems to foster in students a variety of personal virtues or values, such as respect for self and others. SAT students are able to practice democratic deliberation in the classroom, and some respondents reported that because of this they gained the self-confidence needed to participate in public spaces outside the classroom. In addition to these positive findings, there are tensions and challenges. The first is that there is little data on the overall academic quality of the SAT programme in both Colombia and Honduras. Literacy and numeracy skills, as well as critical and independent thinking are prerequisites of meaningful civic participation, and yet people know very little about the programme's performance in these areas. Furthermore, not all women seem to have benefited equally from the programme, particularly those who participated for 2 years or less. Finally, women's participation in community groups was often small-scale and not connected to other social institutions. She concludes by highlighting the implications of these findings for academics, policy-makers, and practitioners interested in how to foster citizen participation through education. (Contains 1 table and 4 notes.)

The paper explores processes of social movement learning within SINTRAEMCALI, a public service trade union in the South West of Colombia, which has successfully prevented a series of attempts by the national government to privatise public utilities. The paper develops the concept of "strategic learning" and applies it to an exploration of the transformation of SINTRAEMCALI from a narrow "corporate" trade union focused on the defence of members' particular interests, to a "social movement union" that linked workers and local communities in the defence of public services and operated on a range of scales from the local to the global. It argues that a strategy based on a material critique of privatisation, mass mobilization and human rights defence, emerged out of a process of "strategic learning" firmly located in a detailed analysis of the complex military, political and social relations that exist in contemporary Colombia. (Contains 1 figure and 32 notes.)

A study involving 670 nonabusive families and 166 abusive families compared Spanish and Colombian cultures in relation to community social support variables and the relationships between these variables and child maltreatment. In both cultures, abusive parents showed lower levels of community integration, participation in social activities, and use of organizations. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Discusses how cultural vitality drives successful community development. Links cultural, community, and environmental values. Examines successes and failures of programs attempting to link culture and development in Panama, Ecuador, and Colombia. Examines role of cultural self-examination for creating new development paradigm. Examines prospects for "culture-based development." (TES)

Social accountability is a concept and a practi- ce that has been institutionalized in Colombia. However, it is preferable to understand the concept as societal accountability, because, contrary to prevailing frameworks, it is not a civil crusade to purify the State, but rather an instrument operated by social and state actors to influence public management. Considering the veedurías ciudadanas as a proxy of this type of control, becomes important to view institutionalization over twenty years of expansion in the country. With the use of official registers and a carefully designed sample, I analyze societal interactions, processes and a mechanisms in the stimuli and development of the veedurías, comparing two municipalities with diverse characteristics. Contrary to their exogenous image, it becomes clear that the veedurías are an expression of societal activity related with the political system, which itself is the principal source of threats to their legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Sewage treatment is one of the great challenges in water management. In this regard, 80% of wastewater is discharged into water sources without any treatment, thus ignoring the fundamental right of access to water and sanitation and its implications for the well-being and development of populations. Colombia since the 50's began the strategy of improving water and sanitation. Seven decades of design and implementation of policies in favor of the expansion of coverage in aqueduct, sewerage and sanitation services, with significant advances for aqueduct and sewerage services and with great challenges facing the need to focus and optimize efforts to be more efficient and make the sanitation. The study and understanding of sustainable basic sanitation was carried out through the search for secondary information carried out in sectoral reports and research documents, where factors that positively or negatively affected the provision of the sanitation service were identified. On the other hand, the understanding of the social and political dynamics of the territory allows in the context of the city of Manizales to identify and analyze the perceptions from the three pillars of sustainability, natural environment, social environment and economic environment of two interest groups in the company Aguas de Manizales SA ESP, provider of the aqueduct and sewerage service in the city, through the application of a user survey and the carrying out of focus groups with institutions and community leaders. Lastly, solutions and strategies are proposed that eliminate causes or reduce the impacts that make it impossible to consolidate the public sanitation service or to maintain it over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"El Malmo" Protective Forest Reserve is a source of conflict between environmental authorities and the inhabitants of the Barón Germania settlement (Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia), as it is located in a rural landscape ruled by agricultural activities that go against the conservation purposes of the protected area. Although a reserve management plan for this area was enacted four decades ago, it has not been adopted to this date. Besides, Boyacá regional environmental authority (Corpoboyacá) has not defined the areas where rural economic activities are prohibited, generating distrust and fear, due to the corrective actions deployed. For these reasons, this research presents a characterization of the environmental conflict in the study area that exposes actors and dimensions, emphasizing the absence of citizen participation mechanisms and resolution actions by jointly developing the zoning in terms of restrictions to the use of existing natural resources in the reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The transition to the constitutional order, proposed in the Political Constitution of 1991, accounts for a regime of democratic openness that provides mechanisms for citizens to dialogue with the institutions of power and generate spaces for debate and political control. This evidences the materialization of the elements of a deliberative democracy within the legal-political contexts that are presented, fundamentally, when the formal text contemplates a Constitutional Court that enables the participation of social circles, bringing democratic principles to the real field of collective deliberation. Hence, the study exposes: firstly, the theoretical-philosophical framework that characterizes deliberative democracy and its application within the Colombian legal field, specifically, that related to the functional analysis of the Colombian Constitutional Court, evidenced from citizen interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes the perception of inhabitants of Norte de Santander (Colombia) on limitations of good governance. Two elements of the new public management, proposed by Fund of the United Nations Development Programme (PNUD) and the World Bank are considered: the absence of corruption and trust in public institutions (of all branches of power at the national, departmental and municipal areas). The perception of citizens was obtained through the application of a survey to a sample of 2,398 people between the ages of 18 and 69 years old, in forty municipalities of the department. The results demonstrated the perception of corruption and mistrust in public institutions which demand strategies to encourage citizen participation and anticorruption policies for the existence of good government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern society has been saturated by countless environmental conflicts that cause a flagrant violation of human rights. This article focuses on Interinstitutional Environmental Agendas as an appropriate instrument for the resolution of such conflicts through the construction of agreements between the stakeholders involved. Based on theoretical considerations and analysis of the implementation of an interinstitutional environmental agenda in an area of paramo located in the township of Soacha (Cundinamarca), the purpose is to provide methodological and conceptual elements and propose steps that should be considered for the implementation and execution of this instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The author questions whether the National Planning Council, as well as the regional councils, are scenarios for the exercise of democracy and whether their participation in the construction of development plans is an effective strengthening tool, or if they are, instead, a mirage in the practice of democracy in Colombia. In the first part several versions of democracy are mentioned, from the exposed by Lincoln, Tocqueville, Schumpeter, Dahl, Bryce, Borón and Sartori. Identified in each case the key elements to keep as referents and analysis support to account, in the second part, which one of these democracies' forms describe the modus operandi within the planning councils in the national or the territorial level. Also discussed is the role of the planning councils, the legitimacy, quality and relevance of the activities of its members, as well as the capability to influence in the bill of the National Development Plan, by means of interviews of present and former members of the National and the district planning councils. The author, in addition to responding to questions concerning the subject matter of this reflection, let others issues open to the consideration of the readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the District Secretary of Health of the city of Bogotá conducted the investigation, "Health for All: Learning from the Experiences of Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) Phase I (2004-2007)". One objective of this study was to "identify, interpret and analyze the available evidence on participation and community empowerment experiences in PHC in the capital district from 2004 to 2007". Given that local health administrators have proposed new discourses and programs such as Salud a Su Hogar (SASH), which encourage conditions that foster community empowerment, participation as a right and the democratization of power, the population of Bogotá was the target population in this study. While various categories of analysis have arisen, this report is concerned with those regarding the institutionalization and instrumentalization of community participation as it has occurred in Bogotá and the potential and limitations of current social participation policies with respect to promoting and developing participation as a right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the habermasian categories of public space within the parameters of participatory practices in Latin America. This work discusses the participatory planning process of Medellín from the mid 1990s, through examining the contrast between the normative behavior of deliberative democracy and certain sociological approaches to participation. The experience of Medellín, during a period of severe paramilitary hostility to popular organizations, allows us to observe the work of concrete projects put together by social actors within specific constraints. Although, as in this case, the democratic potential of this process remains incomplete, the possibilities offered by participatory public spaces can be seen not only as a means of proliferating the willingness to reflect on political processes, but also as a way of mobilizing citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]