School community relationships and 'convivencia'

Analysing conflict management, inclusion and participation in Mexican primary schools.

In this Centre for Education and International Development (CEID) seminar Cristina Perales Franco will present findings from her ethnographic research on school-community relationships, school 'convivencia' (meaning, in the school context, 'to learn to live together'), conflict management, inclusion and participation in Mexican primary schools.

The main findings to be discussed show how particular understandings of school convivencia restrict the possibilities developing democratic, peaceful and inclusive relationships. An argument is put forward that a more comprehensive approach is needed to explain and intervene in school convivencia.

Four convivencia modes - alliance, confrontation, detachment and collaboration - are presented as forms to understand convivencia patterns between families and schools.

These modes aid to explain how constructions around the "appropriate" family and the "appropriate" involvement, in relation especially to the notion of "dysfunctional families", shape specific patterns of relationships that actively exclude some of the schools' most vulnerable population.

This seminar is free to attend and is open to all.

Register to attend

Links

• Centre for Education and International Development (CEID)
• More CEID events

Contact

ceid@ucl.ac.uk

Image: Gilbert Mercier (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)