The objective is to reflect on the current role and the school institution in promoting social cohesion.
School is a privileged area to promote social cohesion, because it is the institution in which citizens learn to relate to each other. It can be said that the school fulfills the important roles: that of transmitting specific knowledge and a socializing role.
Social cohesion is the ability of a society to ensure the well-being of all its members, reduce disparities and avoid marginalization. It supposes democratic stability and sustainable development. In the same way, it enables economic growth and facilitates employment.
The Lisbon Strategy (2000). It was a milestone in history that allowed us to modernize the social model, invest in human resources, fight against social exclusion.
What is social cohesion?
The European Union / Latin America Summit (2006)
"It refers both to the effectiveness of social inclusion mechanisms (employment, education, equity, well-being) and to the behavior of the subjects (Trust in institutions, solidarity, norms of coexistence)
“The degree of interdependence between the members of a society, based on common identity, solidarity and trust. It is based on the development of a community of shared values, common goals and objectives under a situation of equal opportunities, and based on reciprocity. "
Juan Carlos Feres - CEPAL - (2006) "dialectic between instituted mechanisms of social inclusion / exclusion, and the responses, perceptions and dispositions of the citizenry regarding the way in which these mechanisms operate".
Latin America comes from a tradition of centralized educational systems, the multiple attempts at change of that time gave in practice little prominence and scope for action to schools, school institutions are still thought, from a tradition, as places where rare Decisions are made politically.
Council of Europe / Commission, Economic, Latin America and the Caribbean (2007) "Equal opportunities so that the population can exercise their fundamental rights and ensure their well-being, without discrimination of any kind and taking into account diversity." It involves a feeling of belonging and the development of solidarity mechanisms and policies.
The origin of the term appears at the end of the XIX century (Durkheim).
For this author, social cohesion and solidarity are intimately rationed terms. Durkheim establishes two types of solidarity:
- Mechanical: Non-specialized and simple companies (p. 91) Organic: Specialized and complex companies (p. 91)
Actual society
Social cohesion is NOT something natural, it is the set of interrelationships between individuals and institutions. Social conflicts are prevented and democratic stability is guaranteed.
the purpose of social cohesion is to achieve equity.
In schools the implementation of policies is considered of great importance, but they are not presented as spaces of production and exercise of power.
FUNCTIONAL: It is the social dimension, absence of differences, cohesive society.
PURPOSE: Recognizes the value of diversity and inclusion, promoting multiculturalism.
THE PARTICIPATORY APPROACH: Pursues equal opportunities, health, values, trust, quality of life, access to rights
All these components (elements and dimensions) are framed by four main pillars:
- GENERATE OPPORTUNITIES. It is related to employment, professional qualification, social dialogue… DEVELOPING CAPABILITIES. It is related to education. Protect vulnerable groups. It promotes equity. EXTENDING SOCIAL PROTECTION. Access to benefits, higher quality of life, solidarity mechanisms, attention to sectors at risk of exclusion. PROMOTING THE FEELING OF SOCIAL BELONGING. Excluded sectors, women, immigrants.
This relationship must be understood from two perspectives:
- Education as a condition for social cohesion to be given Education as a tool that contributes to social cohesion An example of this relationship is the case of the Euro-member Network to the (Initiative for cooperation between Europe and Latin America through the exchange of experiences on justice, health employment).
It is intended to stimulate positive changes in policies that contribute to the strengthening of social cohesion.
- This relationship is specified in a series of approaches:
determinant in human and economic development. innovation.representations.
The usual language with which we refer to institutions is that of a large number of those involved in the educational system, a school is run, a school is run, a school is run, the head of a school is the head of the institution This must have technical knowledge, must know tools, to prepare an institutional educational project among other things, especially among the private sector.
The school unit is thus presented from a supposed political neutrality. It is defined as an object of politics, but it is rarely presented as a protagonist or actor in it. The consequences or repercussions of attributing this neutrality to the school are worrying for any strategy that tries to guide its work based on the notion of social cohesion.
Studies started decades ago in political science show the superficiality of certain concepts that distinguish between spaces for planning and executing policies
The socioeconomic structuring of school education, observed through the distribution of access, permanence, achievements in years of schooling and - to the extent that data from national and international tests allow, achievements in terms of learning it can contribute to social cohesion. Cohesion must seem to us a social description that should not be defended. But, if it is decided that there is a problem of social cohesion, and that the State or society has to do something, this something is probably going to involve spending resources. We must not be naive. By asking ourselves for this work, we are already spending resources, and we have only just begun.
Firstly, in order to see if social cohesion at least strongly correlates with some perhaps less abstract and less reducible factors, such as material well-being or self-declared happiness of individuals and (less importantly, since it is not You can ask a country if it is happy about the countries. If true, this would give independent value to the concept as something that deserves our attention as a goal. But this is not enough. Second, we want to be sure that what we are Calling social cohesion in education is not easily due to other causal factors.
What one cannot approach without the concept of social cohesion, and this is something for which there are no other variables that explain it, that is to say, it is this of social cohesion in education that is not sufficiently well explained, in reference to other things - like inequality - that we were already worrying about and that we are already working on we really have to start worrying about yet another problem.
Gradsten and Justman (2000) in a theoretical analysis show that societies with greater cohesion have lower transaction costs. Easterly et al. (2006) show that cohesive societies create better institutions and generate more economic growth. According to their empirical studies, societies with a larger middle class and few ethnic-linguistic differences have better institutions and functions, including more civic freedom, more effective institutions, less corruption, and more transparency.
These institutional characteristics, therefore, generate more economic growth. Heyneman (2000) thinks something similar when he says that one of the main functions of education is to facilitate social cooperation and the reinforcement of contracts between individuals. This literature, it seems to us, can be summarized as follows: it could be argued that there are several models of social decision-making.
As we have seen, it is highly likely that humans simply like to get together and solve collective problems (just as many like to trade and haggle in markets), naturally within certain parameters, due to
few people like to have to trade and vote, precisely, and for example, on the brand of toilet paper or wall paint to be used at their children's school. This is where the question of solidarity or cohesion enters as a factor of efficiency, and where the enjoyment of the community members can be reconciled with the concern of the economist or executive with the efficiency of public decision and management. It is possible to propose that when there are high levels of cohesion and solidarity in a society, two things happen that help resolve the tension between participation and executive management.
The most important thing is that the greater the cohesion and solidarity, the less it costs to decide and execute in a participatory way. Decisions can be made relatively quickly, but participatively, and therefore even relatively small decisions can be made in a localized and participatory way, without causing a waste of time and energy among the population.
As mentioned before, the second way in which education is related to social cohesion refers to its ability to create human capital, increasing its competencies and skills and thereby contributing to improving people's living standards.. The idea that education creates wealth was systematized in the pioneering works of Schultz (1970) and Becker (1964); and since then it has served to justify to economists and governments the importance of investments in education. The bridge between those two visions around the role of education in social cohesion is materialized with the theory of social capital, whose historical antecedents are found in the classic Tocqueville texts,who examine the role of voluntary associations as intermediary structures between atomized individuals, in a market economy, and the broader political system (Tocqueville 1981). This conception gave rise to a large number of studies on the role of social networks and trust in the creation of wealth (Coleman 1988; Fukuyama, 1995) and, more generally, on the relationship between social capital and democracy (Putnam, Leonardi & Nanetti, 1993; Putnam, 2001; Skocpol, 2000; 2003).on the relationship between social capital and democracy (Putnam, Leonardi & Nanetti, 1993; Putnam, 2001; Skocpol, 2000; 2003).on the relationship between social capital and democracy (Putnam, Leonardi & Nanetti, 1993; Putnam, 2001; Skocpol, 2000; 2003).
Finally, the third trend that relates education and social cohesion, looks at the first with less kind eyes. For her, education often works as a mechanism for creating professional monopolies and privileges for the benefit of the most educated, limiting social mobility. This would have an increasing cost for society, producing a constant increase in the demands for educational credentials that do not necessarily translate into wealth creation (Bourdieu, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970; Collins, 1979; 2000; Wolf, 2002).
The different theories mentioned are not mutually exclusive. In a situation of economic growth, education is a powerful instrument to create new possibilities of work and wealth. In many countries, immigrants invest heavily in their children's education as the primary mechanism for overcoming social and status barriers established and maintained by local elites. On the other hand, in stagnant societies, the emphasis on educational credentials can operate as a mechanism of discrimination, which ends by decoupling formal education from the content it supposedly contains. When educational stratification coincides with other forms of stratification and social division - ethnic, religious, linguistic or class - the potential for polarization and social conflict is accentuated.Education can, at the same time, contribute to the development of strong local community ties, and isolate communities.
That is why social cohesion is of great importance within society to achieve change and stop excluding vulnerable groups and people with less economic index. Within education, there are also teachers who inadvertently exclude students they lack resources which make a great effort to attend schools, some kisses these children arrive without breakfast which makes most of the kisses sleepy inside the classroom, this annoys teachers and retaliates with students to whom many kisses force them to sit in the corner of the classrooms committing an act of discrimination or marginalization which should not exist in our country because we all have the same rights.
Download the original file
