ANÁLISIS DEL CONCEPTO DE PARTICIPACIÓN EN LOS LIBROS DE FORMACIÓN CÍVICA Y ÉTICA DE 4°, 5° Y 6° GRADO.

School knowledge in elementary level is presented through text books; these are part of the formal curricula, and a teacher's path to follow in several occasions. In our country many studies have been made regarding this matter, through different approaches. In this paper, our focus is to analyze the information about the notion of participation within 4th to 6th grade Citizenship text books, understanding that participation involves students as social subjects. Thus, a descriptive study was made with a content analysis method, based upon the analysis of extracts from three texts edited by the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico. According to the previous study, the results show a predominance of a political dimension by repeatedly addressing democracy as a method of government supported by representation, which is given through indirect participation. Due to this analysis we can infer that participation is only valid under the mechanisms that said democracy establishes, and therefore we can realize the contradictions between the competencies that are expected to be learned and the information presented in the analysis sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]