LAB OF COLLABORATIVE YOUTH: SHAPING A LEARNING FRAMEWORK IN ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP

OLGA GLUMAC I olga.glumac@gmail.comPhDDesign, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto Research Centre for Design, Media and Culture (ID+)

SUPERVISED BYCRISTINA FARINHAInstitute for Sociology, University of PortoSchool of the Arts - Catholic University Porto

RAQUEL MORAISResearch Institute in Art, Design and Society (i2ADS)Vocational and Artistic School of Árvore

This PhD research tackles youngsters’ role as citizens, by recognising them as experts of their own life experiences, capable to give unique contributions and views on addressing certain issues related to their local and learning needs. The youngsters engaged in this process belong to the local community of Miragaia (Porto), coming from an elementary school with an age bracket between 12 and 16 years old.

Through a participatory action approach, the aim is to encourage youngsters’ self-empowerment through codesign practices. This is established by co-sharing and co-deciding conditions for the learning environment, co-creating the learning tools, and discussing the learning process, through which young people can reflect upon their identities as learners within the school context and life-long trajectories.

Since schools are the first window and practice of belonging to a wider society, there is a certain parallel drawn between active learning and active citizenship having in mind that students have the right and the duty in learning to learn by actively engaging in a democratic process within the school life and its local communities.

In 2014, a long-term project in Miragaia school has been initiated as a case study of codesigning participatory practices with, for and by youth. In the first stage warmUP, ethnographic and participatory observation was conducted through voluntary weekly sessions that tackled the wellbeing of youth in the school context, their motivational drivers and awareness towards learning and participating in loco.

In the second phase, buildUP, the students continued participation in the weekly sessions in which they were invited to take ownership and co-manage implementation of initiatives of their own interest, such as the Christmas party and the tournament in football. After the winter break, Miragaia students created a community of practice with design students from Árvore school located in the same area and together they co-created a learning tool - visual dictionary Ilustracionário, a minha maneira - by reflecting upon their own levels of understanding of 23 terms and representing them visually through illustrations.

play is the last phase which was implemented in the classroom and the students were invited to reflect upon their motivation to learn, learning practice and their competencies of co-creating learning tools that can be used inside/outside of the classrooms.

The researcher reflects upon school’s constrains and conditions to learn by deconstructing the possibilities for youngsters’ meaningful participation inside and outside of the classroom, endeavoring the pluralistic approach to a more participatory education.

The principles of codesigning learning processes are based on individual needs and nonhierarhical, voluntary, learner-centered, collaborative, transparent, experiential, experimental and flexible approaches.

The data gathered through weekly sessions in the last three academic years is being analysed and will contribute to shaping a learning framework in active citizenship, as a recommendation of applying codesign in facilitating learning with, for and by youth.

warmUP APR - JUN 2014

buildUP OCT 2014 - JUL 2015

play NOV 2015

PIONEERS’ PLAYGROUND: A STUDY CASE OF A PROJECT IMPLEMENTED IN MIRAGAIA

3D prototypes of the learning tools that can be applied in various siutations of learning: student-student (peer2peer), student - youth workpractitioner (professor, social worker, youth worker, socio-cultural animator, among others)

Learning to learn: students answer what is the most important thing they learnt, where and how they learnt it, and was it something they planned

Exhibition of the Illustracionary, my way - visual dictionary of the concepts in youth policies and civic participation

Youngsters co-organise a public event that gathered different local stakeholders (school members, local authorities, representatives of FAJDP/CdA and IPDJ)

PLURALISTIC APPROACHES TO LEARNING

YOUNGSTERS’ COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

CO-OWNERSHIPSENSE OF BELONGING

TAKING INITIATIVESSELF-RECOGNITION

LOCAL NEEDSMOTIVATIONAL DRIVERSSENSE OF COMMUNITY

LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION

LEARNER = CODESIGNER

Pioneers’ Christmas organised with,for, by students

Local needs assessment: students’ reflections on dimension of sport among others

Map of emotions: reflections made on thestudent-space-community relationships

Students of design from Árvore visit Miragaia school Árvore students work on illustrations