Abstract

GOMEZ-SERRUDO, Nelson. Everyday Life and Games in the Civic Formation of Children. univ.humanist. [online]. 2008, n.66, pp.179-198. ISSN 0120-4807.

This article reflects on how daily life and playing games was the citizen training strategy used for children in the neighborhoods of Santa Fe, La Candelaria, and Suba, among others. The text is a compilation of fragments of interviews, workshops, and urban trips done with the same children during the second half of 2002, as part of the Project "New Citizen Voices" carried out by the Departamento Administrativo de Bienestar Social (DABS). The author inquires as to how these children take on the urban dynamics in relationship to the places where they socialize and/or coexist side-by-side, places that in turn determine the social character of both public and private life. The topic of citizen education or training is approached from the perspective of children's rights and the participation they experience in public spaces such as the street, the neighborhood, the park, and the school where they learn how to deliberate on the needs and interests of their community. A main concept used in the paper is that of a third zone, that propitious space where children explore freedom, imagination, wonderment, and difference. On the other hand, the way in which children live in their private realm is also analyzed; that is, how they live in the intimate space of family life. The article is structured around three moments: spaces for encounters and disagreements; participation and citizenship; and the public and private realms.

Keywords : City and daily life; children and citizen education; educational city; rights and participation; public and private life; ludic education; games and play; third zone; socialization and conviviality.

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