Rural Children’s Representations of the Land

Heloísa Giron; José Luís Ferraro

doi:10.21601/aquademia/11892

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Heloísa Giron ¹ ^* , José Luís Ferraro ¹

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¹ Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), BRAZIL^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

In this study, we investigated children’s representations of the land while they participated on a place-based environmental education program in a Brazilian rural school. Environmental education activities aimed to foster a critical understanding of children’s contextual reality as residents of a rural settlement associated with the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). We focused our analysis in the representations of the land, due to the symbolism it carries for farmers and activists for agrarian reform. From the analysis of the materials produced in the activities and the field notes of participatory observation, we identified three categories in children’s representations: (I) land as the provider, (II) land as home and (III) land as the biodiversity. In these categories, we observed children understand land as a constituent of their contextual reality. These results reinforce the pedagogical potential of interacting with land, particularly in the development place attachment and pro-environmental place meanings.

Keywords

landless workers’ movement
rural children
land representation
place attachment
place meaning
participatory action research

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

AQUADEMIA, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2022, Article No: ep22002

https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

Publication date: 10 Mar 2022

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How to cite this article

APA

Giron, H., & Ferraro, J. L. (2022). Rural Children’s Representations of the Land. Aquademia, 6(1), ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

Vancouver

Giron H, Ferraro JL. Rural Children’s Representations of the Land. AQUADEMIA. 2022;6(1):ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

AMA

Giron H, Ferraro JL. Rural Children’s Representations of the Land. AQUADEMIA. 2022;6(1), ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

Chicago

Giron, Heloísa, and José Luís Ferraro. "Rural Children’s Representations of the Land". Aquademia 2022 6 no. 1 (2022): ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

Harvard

Giron, H., and Ferraro, J. L. (2022). Rural Children’s Representations of the Land. Aquademia, 6(1), ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892

MLA

Giron, Heloísa et al. "Rural Children’s Representations of the Land". Aquademia, vol. 6, no. 1, 2022, ep22002. https://doi.org/10.21601/aquademia/11892