ABSTRACT
The article has participation as its main theme, both as a means and as an end for citizenship education. Based on research about pedagogical mediations on participatory budgeting and on Latin American pedagogy, we argue that some myths and fallacies about participation need to be deconstructed, such as the incapacity of the people, or their lack of time and resources. As outlined in the paper, the challenge is to “decolonize” participation, allowing it to become an effective instrument for the democratization of society. The concept of coloniality serves to anchor this discussion in the broader scope of critical pedagogies. As a counterpoint, we present a series of matters that, in spite of the diversities within the subcontinent, intend to refer to the Latin American educational context as a whole: participation as a political-pedagogical process; knowledge of the history of our pedagogy in its critical roots; understanding of the cultures of participation and the way they express themselves socially and politically; reflection about democratically transforming utopias.
Keywords:
Participation; Coloniality; Citizenship; Latin American pedagogy; Pedagogical Mediations.