A Cooperative Experience to Promote Innovation of Citizenship Education in Elementary Schools in Chile

Abstract

This paper analyzes the results of the cooperative work done by university faculty, schoolteachers and a ministry’s technical team in an attempt to promote innovation on citizenship education. The work consisted on designing units of instruction on citizenship education in three subject matter curricula. These units of instruction were then applied in ten low socio-economic urban public schools in Santiago, Chile. The participants were 30 fifth grade teachers. A qualitative approach was applied which considered a collective case study. Class observations were conducted. The main results showed that: (a) teaching was directed to make learning about citizenship education more relevant to students, (b) teaching was directed to develop student´s agency and empowerment; (c) content class connected in-school learning to out-of school living; and monitoring progress is performed in a very constrained manner.

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Revista Românească pentru Educaţie Multidimensională
ISSN: 2066-7329 | e-ISSN: 2067-9270
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2018, Volume 10, Issue 4, pages: 182-200 | doi: https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/81
A Cooperative
Experience to
Promote Innovation
of Citizenship
Education in
Elementary Schools
in Chile
Daniel RÍOS1,
Catherine FLORES2,
David HERRERA3
1 Daniel Ríos, PhD, Department of
Education, Universidad de Santiago de
Chile, Santiago, Chile,
daniel.rios@usach.cl
² Catherine Flores, PhD, Department of
Education, Universidad de Santiago de
Chile, Santiago, Chile,
catherine.flores@usach.cl
³ David Herrera, MSc, Department of
Education, Universidad de Santiago de
Chile, Santiago, Chile,
david.herrera@usach.cl
Abstract: This paper analyzes the results of the cooperative
work done by university faculty, schoolteachers and a
ministry‟s technical team in an attempt to promote innovation
on citizenship education. The work consisted on designing
units of instruction on citizenship education in three subject
matter curricula. These units of instruction were then applied
in ten low socio-economic urban public schools in Santiago,
Chile. The participants were 30 fifth grade teachers. A
qualitative approach was applied which considered a collective
case study. Class observations were conducted. The main
results showed that: (a) teaching was directed to make learning
about citizenship education more relevant to students, (b)
teaching was directed to develop student´s agency and
empowerment; (c) content class connected in-school learning
to out-of school living; and monitoring progress is performed
in a very constrained manner.
Keywords: educational innovation; citizenship education.
How to cite: Rios, D., Flores, C., & Herrera, D. (2018). A
Cooperative Experience to Promote Innovation of
Citizenship Education in Elementary Schools in Chile. Revista
Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala, 10(4), 182-200.
https://doi.org/10.18662/rrem/81

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Introduction
During the last three decades, public policies in Chile have promoted
the improvement of the quality of student learning, particularly in state
schools. These policies are intended to help students from low
socioeconomic backgrounds to continue higher education or help them to
enter into the world of work with the knowledge, skills and attitudes
required to contribute to economic development. In Chile, as in many other
countries, the quality of teaching has been shown to make an essential
contribution to enhancing the quality of education and students‟
achievements (Haynes, 2011). It is argued that teachers are key players to
innovation processes; therefore their actions can improve the processes and
educational results of their students. Thus, educational policies have placed
schools, management teams and, especially teachers at the center of the
transformations.
Pedagogical innovation in citizenship education, the same as other
educational initiatives, assumes that the change of pedagogical practice must
be directed to the importance of rescuing the ideas, practices, decision
making, interventions, and joint creation processes as a way of confronting
current challenges in the classroom with the purpose of modifying attitudes,
thoughts, contents, models, and practices rooted in the school, which must
be restated within the framework of restating and restructuring (Ríos &
Araya, 2016). This means that innovation in citizenship education implies
advancing in the construction of a work oriented to generate sustained deep
changes.
Educational practice is of equal value with knowledge when we
come to tackle citizenship education. One of the major flaws in citizenship
education has been that it fails to bring democracy to life in schools, and
remains at the stage of merely enunciating principles and describing
institutions. When the organization of a school does not lead to a
democratic mode of operating on which pupils can give their opinions,
children and adolescents lose interest in citizenship and see only the
mismatch between what adults say and what they do, between knowledge
and action.
In this context, the purpose of this paper is presenting the main
results of the experience in pedagogical innovation in citizenship education
for fifth-year students. This is a first approach which purpose was to design,
implement, and reflect on educational experiences oriented at strengthening
citizenship education learning goals in the classroom. The main objective of
the project was to identify the cross-curricular objectives of the National

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Curriculum and make explicit the way these connected to citizenship
education. Then, these objectives were developed in a Didactic Unit that was
implemented in schools.
The discussion of this paper has been organized in three main
sections. First, it will discuss the research context and will provide a brief
overview of the phases of the project. This paper will discuss phase 2, The
Implementation of the Didactic Unit. Then, it will present the theoretical
framework providing information about the methodology applied in the
study. Finally, a discussion of the findings is provided.
1. The research context
In recent years one of the most important public educational policies
in Chile have been aimed at guaranteeing spaces for democratic coexistence
and citizen participation at school. In 2016, Law 20.911 mandated the
'Development of Citizenship Education Plans” as a way of responding to
the demand by society on the challenges that the educational system must
assume to support the training of citizens responsible for and committed to
democracy (MINEDUC, 2016a, 2016b; UNDP, 2015; ICCS-IEA, 2010;
MINEDUC, 2009a, 2009b).
The development of a participative culture that involves the
educational actors has generated a national challenge to confront citizenship
learnings at school. In this sense the citizenship education is conceived as
cross-curriculum objectives of the National Curriculum. The purpose of
these are forming people with ethical and democratic principles and
behaviors so that the school may become an institution having an
educational role that allows delivering tools to the students for the
development of an education for citizenship. This innovation is directed to
carry out concrete educational actions through the construction of a didactic unit
that reinforces the development of citizenship, ethics, and a democratic
culture at school.
The “Citizenship Education Plan” must promote the appropriation
of significant tools and skills in four action fields, namely: (a) the
construction of autonomy and self-confidence oriented at the ability to make
decisions; (b) consolidating practices of healthy and respectful social
coexistence, contributing as citizens to strengthen democracy by
participating in and valuing diversity; (c) deepening an ethical education to
consolidate a coexistence supported by the principles of tolerance,

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transparency, cooperation, and freedom; and (d) contributing to the
country‟s progress from a sustainable economic development.
1
Therefore, a proposal intended to make visible the Cross-Curricular
Objectives (OAT) and the Learning Objectives (OA) as a possibility of
consolidating citizenship education to accomplish with the Citizenship Plan
was developed. Fifth grade teachers and a team of 5 faculty members from
the Education Department of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, worked
collaboratively to propose curricular designs, didactic strategies, and learning
activities considering the possibilities provided by Cross-Curricular
Objectives (Objetivos de Aprendizaje Transversal)
2
(OAT), and Learning
Objectives (Objetivos de Aprendizaje)
3
(OA) of the National Curriculum
(MINEDUC, 2012, 2013).
For the development of pedagogical innovation, the project was
articulated from the collaborative work methodology, which allows advancing
in cooperation and interaction instances, promoting the subjective exchange
of meanings and decision making (Badia & García, 2006; Johnson &
Johnson, 2004). It also promotes individual responsibility and social skills
practices oriented to strengthening critical and self-critical thought related to
the creation of self-evaluation and group evaluation spaces (Johnson &
Johnson, 2004).
The project was characterized by being a co-construction of a
month-long didactic unit that considered the collaboration between teachers
of the disciplines, pedagogic coordinators of the different participating
schools, and university faculty. The co-construction took place by carrying
out workshops for the design of the didactic innovations, accompanying
activities during their implementation, and later reflection meetings on the
development of the experiments and the results obtained.
The project was aimed at developing and implementing a didactic
proposal for the schools, taking into account their educational and
1
These fields are present in the recommendations arising from the Presidential Advisory
Council Against Conflicts of Interest, Traffic of Influence, and Corruption (Consejo Asesor
Presidencial Contra los Conflictos de Interés, el Tráfico de Influencias y la Corrupción) (CAPCCITIC,
2015). Final report. Recovered from http://consejoanticorrupcion.cl/lanzamiento- final/,
octubre 2016.
2
The Learning Objectives are objectives that define the terminal learnings expected for a
given subject for every school year. They refer to the skills, attitudes, and knowledge aimed
at favoring the integral development of the students (MINEDUC, 2013).
3
The “Cross-Curricular Objectives” (Objetivos de Aprendizaje Transversal) refers to the general
and integral development that must be achieved by all the subjects of the national
curriculum to generate learnings in the fields of personal, intellectual, moral, and social
development of the children and youngsters.

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fundamental role as consolidators of new social practices. Therefore, the
spirit of the innovative proposal is meant to get the participation of the main
stakeholders of the educational community to reflect in practice, on the
most adequate methodologies, and strategies for promoting significant
learning oriented to the reinforcement of a democratic culture of the 21st
century.
1.2. Phases of the project
This pedagogical innovation project oriented to strengthening the
citizenship learnings in 5th grade students was applied between November
2016 to October 2017. The intention was to design, implement, and evaluate
an educational innovation proposal in Citizenship Education which, through
collaborative and reflexive work between teachers, faculty professors and a
ministry‟s technical team, would prepare a Didactic Unit in the disciplines of
History, Geography and Social Science, Physical Education and Health, and
Language and Communication.
To achieve its goal, the proposal was articulated into three phases: 1)
The Didactic Unit design which involved working with key players: teachers,
Technical Pedagogical Unit
4
(UTP) heads, directors, and representatives of
Municipal Education Corporations; 2) The Implementation of the Didactic Unit. It
was focused on the implementation of the Didactic Unit developed by
teachers of each subject; and 3) Systematization and Dissemination of good
practice in this area. It sought to reinforce the dialogic exchange between
teachers, sharing the strategies that were considered to be the most
successful, evaluating the implementation of the project, and providing
space for a theoretical, conceptual, practical, and real discussion on the
importance of the work done as a way of contributing to students‟
achievement. As stated earlier, this paper will present Phase 2.
2. Theoretical framework
The foundational premise of “being a citizen” is that it is constituted
and conforms with linking processes dependent on the socialization existing
in different spaces and formal and informal contexts: the family, the school,
the quarter, identity groups, ethnical, religious, spiritual, social, and
communitarian movements that constitute the social fabric and offer unique
opportunities to consolidate citizenship learnings (Espínola, 2005; Galston,
2004, 2001; Kymlicka & Norman, 1997; Reimers, 2006).
4
Educational unit in charge of monitoring and accompanying the learning-teaching
processes of teachers and the school-management.

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Meanwhile, the school has the advantage of offering a space for
subjectivization and symbolization in which not only the meaning of what
being a citizen implies, but also the first dimensions of the citizenship
experience is lived (Bauman, 2009; Fishman & Haas, 2012; Hargreaves,
2003; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Shulz, 2001). It offers the largest
number of opportunities for developing a civic knowledge that promotes
democratic values and active and informed participation, and the cognitive
skills required to make rational judgments when facing the problems and
challenges imposed by the citizen condition (Galston, 2001).
School experience refers to the participation and expression spaces
that are generated within the school and to the climate in which the relations
between authorities and students are developed, as a way of forcing a
democratic view in the school, in the sense that education is the fundamental
method for progress and equitable social reform (Osler & Starkey, 2006;
Tonge, Mycock, & Jeffery, 2012; UNESCO, 2009). In this field, research has
reached important conclusions on the positive correlation that there is
between the citizens‟ commitment and a climate organized from democratic
and not authoritarian relations between the different members of the
educational community (principals, teachers, administrators, students and
families). It has also been made clear that the willingness of young people to
participate in politics is positively related to the existence of educational
spaces that stimulate the students‟ active participation, both in the classroom
and in decision making within the school (Callahan, Muller, & Schiller, 2010;
Isaac, Maslowski, & Van der Werf, 2011; Lin, 2015; Ranson, 2012).
In this sense, research has shown that there is a positive relation
between political commitment and the curricula that promote the
importance of the democratic system and reinforce the qualities of good
citizens; at the same time impelling the development of reflexive,
investigative, and communicative skills that allow participating in discussions
on controversial and general interest issues, and becoming committed in the
organizations of civil society (Isaac et al., 2014).
On the other hand, the learning opportunities are also related to the
training and abilities of the teachers to design and implement the classroom
experience oriented to citizenship education. Therefore, evidence points out
that teacher training is a key element for the quality and effectiveness of the
educational process, especially in relation to the planning and execution of
educational processes aligned with the curricular objectives and with the
generation of a classroom climate open to the participation of the students
through democratic interactions in the classroom (Coleman, 2014; Isaac et

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al., 2011; Rönstrom, 2012; Torney, Barber, & Kandl, 2005; Treviño, Béjares,
Villalobos, & Naranjo, 2016; Tudball & Forsyth, 2009; UNESCO, 2015).
It is under these premises that schools appear not only as spaces for
subjectivation, symbolization, and meanings of what it is to be a citizen, but
they also offer the first real and concrete citizen experience (Fishman &
Haas, 2012; Huddleston & Kerr, 2005; Kerr, 2015).
3. Methodology
3.1 Participants
The innovation considered the participation of 30 teachers from 10
municipal schools with a population of students from low socioeconomic
background located in the city of Santiago, Chile. They were teachers of
History, Geography and Social Science, Physical Education and Health, and
Language and Communication. The proportion was 75% women and 25%
men. Of the total number, 30% were teachers with less than five years of
professional practice and 70% had six or more years as teachers.
3.2 Data collection and analysis
To analyze the implementation of the curricular designs in the
classroom prepared by the teachers for the development of Citizenship
Training in 5th year, a qualitative methodological approach was used (Denzin
& Lincoln, 2011; Flick, Von Kardorff, & Steinke, 2004), since the aim was to
know the experience of a social group in a given context (Marshall &
Rossman, 2011). Specifically, the research design corresponds to a collective
(Stake, 2005) or multiple (Neiman & Quaranta, 2006) case study, because the
focus is placed on a specific population formed in different groups of
schools.
The information that was going to be analyzed came from the
application of an observation rubric, validated by expert judgment in the
selected schools, which was prepared jointly with school‟s teachers.. The
rubric‟s main theme is citizenship education, and its principal focuses are: (1)
the effective implementation of the learning objectives and cross-curricular
objectives related to citizenship education; (2) learning environment (3) the
allocation and use of instructional time; and (4) monitoring progress on
citizenship education. The validation process consisted of meetings between
the ministry‟s technical team and the university‟s professors, generating a co-
construction according to the guidelines, needs and orientations determined
by the described observation focuses. The observation guidelines were
applied on 61 opportunities, considering the three subjects of Language and

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Communication, Physical Education and Health, and History, Geography
and Social Science. This number represents the total interpreted documents
which were coded with the NVivo, version 11, qualitative analysis software.
The main results of this experience are summarized below. The
results will be presented as a function of the approached objectives
described in the observation pattern that was used for collecting the
data.The results will be presented using a number for each school. Thus,
School one will be presented as S1, School 2, as S2 until to S10.
4. Findings
The purpose of this study was to analyze the implementation phase
of an innovation on education citizenship implemented in 5th grade. From
the evidence collected and analyzed, the main results are presented in
relation to the focuses established in the rubric.
Focus I: Effective implementation of learning and cross-curricular
objectives related to citizenship education
The first focus of the rubric had the purpose of evaluating the
effective implementation of the curriculum associated with citizenship
education. Therefore, aspects such as purposeful teaching, active
methodologies, and students‟ participation on their own learning were part
of the rubric.
Analyzing the data it is possible to argue that most teachers showed
a purposeful teaching. The data analyzed show that teachers‟ practices were
directed to make learning about citizenship education more relevant to
students. However, the manner the goal of the class was presented to the
students differed from teacher to teacher, as evidenced in the following
observations:
The activities are developed in favor of approaching citizenship
education. At the beginning, the class talks about responsibility,
respect, leadership, family, school and citizen relations. During
the class there are pauses to reflect on citizens approaches that
can be given to the activities performed. At the end the required
time is taken for the class group to talk about what they have
experienced and their reflections (School 1).
The teacher states the purpose of the class: „We respect
intellectual property as an honest value for a better civic life‟
(School 3).

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At the beginning of the class, the teacher had the objective
written on the board: „Valuing life in society as a dimension...‟.
Then she reads the objective of the class: Demonstrate civic
attitudes in actions of daily life (School 5).
In the rest of the classes, teachers complemented the reading of the
class objective by asking the students questions or by activating previous
knowledge or everyday experience:
The teacher writes the objective on the board: Recognizing
positive and negative pedestrian conducts. Based on this, the
teacher asks what we are going to understand by pedestrian, so
this generates a joint definition among the different students.
Then they watch a video of cartoons on traffic regulations.
From the video, the students identify the positive behaviors they
must follow as pedestrians. They are identified and stated to the
class as if it were a plenum (School 4).
Regarding active methodologies, the data show the following:
Students have a very active and constant role during the class. A
large part of their participation took place through students
posing themes and commenting on other students‟ opinions.
They constantly try to contribute their own personal
experiences, where the teacher responds through conceptual
reflections (School 10).
Focus II: Promotion of a learning environment
The second focus of the guideline analyzed students‟ involvement
and teacher‟s ability to promote a classroom climate that favors citizenship
learning. The results of this section show that, in general, the dialog spaces
were constant during the whole session, representing a systematic and
meaningful practice attempting to integrate the cross-curricular objectives
that contribute directly to citizenship education. Through encouraging dialog
and students‟ participation on the curriculum of the class, teachers were
promoting students‟ agency and empowerment in a democratic
environment.
Regarding a learning environment, most of the students participated
actively in a respectful classroom climate that favored citizenship learning.
They usually turned to be very involved in the educational process.

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The class is highly participative and receptive. They get involved
actively in the development of each of the class activities
(answers to initiation questions, responses between the rights
and the associated duties, preparation/presentation of cartoons
and at the closure, especially from the generated meta-evaluation
and self-evaluation) (School 6).
The students participate actively, giving instructions to each
other to improve the game. They are constantly organized, and
are available for solving problems (School 4).
In this context, it is important to point out that teachers used varied
strategies aimed at promoting students‟ participation. The main strategy was
posing questions and analyzing answers. Other strategies were carrying out
group activities. Besides that, content class connected in-school learning to
out of school living.
However, there were some classes that showed a very limited range
of students‟ participation with an important number of students who
remained alienated from the activities.
The interaction between the teacher and the students can be
considered problematic insofar that the class cannot continue,
and there are constant interruptions (School 2).
The students did not respect the opinions of their classmates
and, constantly, there were out of context discussions among
the students (School 3).
Despite the differences observed between schools, it is clear that in
most cases the teachers promote an appropriate classroom climate for the
generation of significant learning in matters of citizenship training.
Focus III: The allocation and use of instructional time
The third focus of the guideline had the purpose of examining the
conditions of the class, the teacher‟s actions and decisions meant to achieve
good profiting of the time for learning and teaching. The evidence shows
that in most cases, the teachers used the instructional time adequately,
following what was established in the curricular design and performing the
activities in a logical order, a situation that is presented below:

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The teacher organizes time in an effective manner, providing the
appropriate spaces for the opinions and participation of the
students. Similarly, he gives the proper time for group
discussion by the students during the development of the
activity and the later closure of the class from the presentations
of the students and the overview of the contents made by the
teacher (School 10).
The third focus also inquired on the role of the students in carrying
out the activities proposed for the Citizenship Training. In a large part of the
studied cases, the students had an active and leading role in the teaching-
learning process, participating in the activities and following the teachers‟
instructions, especially those linked to the creation of cartoons, posters,
texts, and representations or dramatizations on “being a citizen.”
Students participate actively in the class, they watch and
comment the videos, answer the teacher‟s questions, share their
own experiences, and link them with citizenship training,
especially when the teacher relates respect and active listening as
a citizen‟s attitude (School 10).
The interaction between the students and the teacher is given in
the framework of trust and respect, maintaining their freedom
to ask questions as well as to express opinions and make their
personal life contributions (School 4).
The active participation of students implies their having a respectful
attitude toward their peers and teacher, promoting the creation of a
significant learning space for the students.
Focus IV: Monitoring the achievement of citizenship learning
The objective of the fourth focus of the guideline was to analyze
those teachers‟ conditions, actions, and decisions that can be noticed in the
classroom, aimed at observing, supervising, and evaluating their students‟
work. Regarding its first dimension, relative to the interaction between
teachers and students for citizenship learning, the evidence shows that
feedback was mostly permanent during the class, strengthening the learning
on citizenship.

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The active methodology of the class allowed the students to feel
protagonists of their own learning, posing and answering
questions from the teacher and from themselves (School 10).
The teacher emphasizes the importance of respect in each of
their feedbacks, and points out that this is a citizen‟s value
(School 4).
The second dimension of the focus is related to the involvement of
the students in the process of assessing their own learning. In most cases the
students were involved positively, responding to the issues brought up by
the teachers or reflecting on the subjects taught.
Some students respond actively to the questions, and they
reflect on the ways of coexisting at school and in the family
(School 5).
On the other hand, there were some examples of students‟
disengagement on the process of assessing their own performance.
In general terms, there was no great interest in the students at
the time of assessing achievement (School 3).
The third dimension deals with the feedback and monitoring
processes of citizenship learning. The results of this dimension present a
willingness by the teachers to promote a synthesis by setting questions to
their students leading to metacognition of citizenship processes.
There is constant feedback by the teacher. This is observable
through directed questions, plenum synthesis, and other
students‟ opinions. The teacher guides the class toward
fulfillment of the planning without putting boundaries to the
discussions generated among the students (School 10).
It is important to stress the diversity of pedagogical strategies and
activities developed according to the specificity of the subjects, which
allowed not only approaching the citizenship learnings from a common
cross-curricular objective, but also enabling the generation of actions that
favored the citizenship learnings from the curricular requirements belonging
to the disciplines. Furthermore, the collaborative work and the co-

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construction of the didactic designs by the teachers of different schools
must be highlighted, because they succeed from practical activities to
incentivize a sense and action from and to the citizenship learning which
account for the involvement and participation of the students in these
learning dynamics.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
The present study shows the results of the implementation of
Citizenship Education didactic proposals in the subjects of History,
Geography and Social Science, Physical Education and Health, and
Language and Communication at ten municipal schools located in Santiago,
Chile. In general, the implementation of the didactic proposals delivered
positive results by fulfilling the main objective proposed in the project,
namely to generate citizenship learning opportunities to the children of the
schools participating in the study.
Relating the effective implementation of learning and cross-
curricular objectives related to citizenship education, the results show that
making the class objectives explicit was done in different ways in the
analyzed group of cases. For example, in some cases the teachers referred to
the objective pointed out explicitly in the curricular instruments that guide
their action, generally writing it on the board and making the students write
it in their notebooks. In these cases, the teachers explained the concepts that
would be brought up in the class, although they did not point out the
objectives. The teachers also used other strategies to refer to the objectives,
such as asking questions on previous knowledge. It is therefore seen that
there is a class planning, and it is specified that the class will be centered on
acquiring knowledge and citizen‟s attitudes.
Additionally, the high proportion of students who participate
actively in the exercises proposed by the teacher is stressed. The prevalence
of a respectful climate that favors citizenship learning is highlighted, because
it turned most of the students into protagonists of the educational process.
This accounts for a greater empowering by the students, which can be
explained by the predominance of group activities in which the internal
organization of the group was promoted by assigning roles and functions.
Another important aspect is the fact that the contents associated with the
class were permanently linked with real experience or the students‟ own
experience.
Regarding classroom climate that favors citizenship learning, the
results show that, in general, the dialog spaces were constant during the

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whole session, with a permanent interaction of teachers and students; only in
some schools there was an inadequate classroom climate where student
discipline problems arose.
In respect to, the allocation and use of instructional time the
evidence shows that in most cases the teachers used their time efficiently as
a function of the teaching-learning process, following what is established in
the classroom curriculum design, and carrying out the activities in a logical
order. With respect to the interactions between teachers and students for
citizenship learning, the evidence points out that in three of the six cases,
feedback was permanent during the class. In some cases, the lack of the
students‟ discipline management and control by the teacher hindered
carrying out the feedback process of what had been learned. In relation to
student involvement in the evaluative process of learning, in most cases the
students were involved positively, answering the questions asked by the
teacher or reflecting on the issues taught.
In some cases, the results show that the teachers‟ intent for
synthesizing what had been learned is through asking questions from the
students, while in others the teacher takes up once again the central concept
of the class and states a definition. On the other hand, in six of the 15
classes observed in a school there was no synthesis, mainly because there
was no good time distribution for each activity. This suggests that those
teachers had difficulties in the full control of their teaching, and this can
affect their students‟ learning.
On the other hand, the weakness of not incorporating the formal
collection of evidence of what has been learned stands out as a weakness, so
the teachers participating in this study did not make use of any assessing
instrument other than asking oral questions from the group. Here it is
important to bring up the importance of getting evidence through the
application of appropriate instruments with respect to what has been
learned, and use them in decision-making processes. It is also expected that
in the evaluation processes the students will participate, through self-
evaluation and co-evaluation, because learning in these activities can be the
key to their later participation as citizens, based on their critical, self-critical,
and autonomous ability for improving society.
As to the aspects to be achieved, the need to intend citizenship
learning so that it will be significant to the students, the importance of using
better the technological resources, and the importance of improving the
classroom climate to generate significant citizenship learning is pointed out.
Finally, it is necessary to continue innovating and researching these
kinds of issues which are central for school training, aiming at the future

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participating of the students as citizens in the society to which they belong.
Citizenship training may constitute a relevant and pertinent curricular
content to advance in new collaboration forms between the Ministry of
Education, the school and the university to benefit the students‟ integral
training
It can be pointed out that according to the learning achieved in the
development and execution of innovations associated with the didactic
strategies of three subjects of the Chilean school curriculum for 5th grade,
the specified objectives were achieved, taking as axes the understanding of
the different concepts related to citizenship training, the participation of the
students from their own experiences and lives, as well as their integration in
the work of the teacher, who acts as a promoter of a classroom climate
adequate for the teaching-learning process, allowing the students to become
aware of the fact that they were inserted in a personal and collective learning
dynamics (Callahan et al., 2010; Isaac, et. al, 2011; Lin, 2015; Ranson, 2012).
On the implementation of the didactic designs, it can be stated that
the experience was successful, because it was possible to transform the
pedagogical proposal into a significant learning experience in which the
process allowed favoring the construction and the comprehension from the
conceptual standpoint, facilitating the problematization around one‟s own
situations, the linkage with events related to social life, and above all, from
the respect and valuation of the opinions of others in a constant climate of
positive reinforcement and tolerant dialogue.
Considering this framework, it should be noted that the model
proposed by the pedagogical innovation delivers specific guidelines and
concrete actions to advance toward the development of citizenship training
in the whole school system, enabling an integrated work sustained by the co-
construction of the Didactic Unit for each of the areas involved. This co-
construction was carried out by teachers of different school subjects,
pedagogical coordinators of the participating schools, and professors,
generating reflection and articulation instances in pedagogical-curricular
decision making which strengthen citizenship education from the interaction
of the educational actors and the incorporation of conceptions related to
this new democratic view in schools.
As to the aspects to be achieved, it is possible to mention the need
for strengthening the methodologic and didactic strategies, the citizenship
learnings so that they may be significant to the students, strengthening their
interaction with social reality and its importance for the development of the
students is pointed out, linking these types of learning activities and exercises
by optimizing the resources provided by the educational technologies, as

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Daniel RIOS, et. al.
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well as involving students even more in the creation of citizenship learning
experiences.
Finally, the creation of innovative spaces in the school for the
development of citizenship education for our students becomes an ethical
and moral imperative that the whole society must assume not only to
advance learning for life, but also to strengthen the democratic system by
means of a conscious, active, and reflexive-critical participation oriented to
deepening the country‟s primordial values, such as inclusion, respect for
diversity, and the transverse guarantee of human rights.
Acknowledgment
This paper is based on the presentation called “Pedagogical innovations in
citizen training for elementary school students in vulnerable sectors of
Chile” (“Innovaciones pedagógicas en formación ciudadana para estudiantes de educación
primaria de sectores vulnerables en Chile”), submitted to the XIX Amse-Amce
Waer Congress 2018, carried out from June 4 through 7 at the Stefan cel
Mare University, Suceava, Romania.
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