Unlearning and disempowerment as tools for democratic participation

Unlearning

Unlearning invites a change in adults’ relationships with children. It is about fostering unconditional acceptance and free movement within functional boundaries created by the learning group, including the children. Rather than directing the children’s activities, anticipating their initiatives, imposing adult perspectives, or praising or censuring their actions and thoughts, this approach encourages adults to refrain from making value judgments. Instead, they focus on describing actions without evaluation and offering support and resources.

Disempowerment

The concept of disempowerment invites the adults’ active reflection. It moves them towards a process of political self-management, associated with “the promotion of forms of relationship and interaction characterised by horizontality and equity, and collective decision-making about what and how to learn” (Encina and Ezeiza, 2016, pp. 9-10).

In this context, a foundational trust develops (Corsaro, 2005; Prout and James, 1997) nourished by joint participation in decision-making, a dialogical perspective adopted by adults in conflict resolution by involving children as “agents of meaning-making” (Thornberg and Elvstrand, 2012). Disempowerment is also about mutual learning, where students and adults learn from each other, understanding the pedagogical approach as a process of collective construction of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Within this approach, adults help young people define their learning objectives, the methodology to be used, and how they will assess the processes. However, the priority is always the young people’s well-being and emotional balance, as these are understood to be conditions for appropriate cognitive development (Janov and Holden, 1975).

For this vision of disempowerment to be realised, it is necessary to make decision-making structures more flexible, to develop active listening skills, engage non-violent communication, and democratise spaces for discursive participation. In other words, drawing on the reflections of facilitators of self-directed learning spaces (Greenberg, 2003; Robinson, 2012; Wild and Wild, 2002), the attitudes framing these roles are based on:

• answering questions when asked.
• refraining from dominating activities.
• promoting an open curriculum and collaborative assessment.
• asking key questions so that children can identify and manage their mistakes.
• fostering strategies for self-directed learning.
• recognising the relative nature of knowledge and exploring its nuances.
• encouraging self-assessment processes.
• relinquishing the enjoyment of a superior status.
• maintaining a continuous learning attitude that allows support for children’s development processes.