An Ethnographic Approach to School Convivencia

Abstract

Convivencia is a Spanish concept that addresses the ways of living together, living with others. School convivencia in particular is formed by the tapestry of social relations that construct the everyday life in schools, and it provides the relational elements and boundaries where the school experience is constructed. This article derives from an investigation of the relationships between two Mexican primary schools and their local communities and their implications for school convivencia. It presents two challenges of analysing school convivencia from an ethnographic perspective: the struggle between restrictive and comprehensive approaches and the tension between the specific and the complex in understanding convivencia.

School-Community Relationships and Convivencia in Mexico

“…It is formed by the multiplicity of social relationships that construct everyday life in these educational institutions (Bazdresch Parada, 2009). The type of convivencia that a school has shapes the schooling experience of the students, but also the experiences of the teachers, the parents and other actors involved, since it provides the relational elements and boundaries through which the school experience is constructed (Perales Franco, 2018). To consider convivencia in schools is to focus on the quality -in the sense of both characteristics and attributed values -of the interpersonal relationships that are constructed in the institution (Ararteko, 2006) and the implications of such quality in other aspects like learning, moral development, conflict management and possibilities of participation.…”