“Workshop with Families”: Behind a Participatory Practice, Emancipatory Interests

Abstract

On numerous occasions, researchers working in the Social Sciences are compelled to justify their scientific activity. Where do these needs originate? Why does this demand to demonstrate the validity of scientific knowledge arise?

This paper refers to the traditional opposition between the Natural Sciences and the Social Sciences, which has become an epistemological obstacle. It analyzes the object of study, the methodology, and the way in which each field appropriates knowledge. It also refers to the current socio-historical conditions that devalue human interaction.

The approach centers on considering intersubjectivity as a proposal for overcoming the subject–object split and postulates participatory methodology as a way of knowing and documenting different and diverse social realities in which the researcher becomes involved in the lives of others.

It proposes the “Workshop with Families” within the school setting as a participatory strategy: a means of access to the representations that families construct regarding their children’s schooling. At the same time, it recovers interaction among parents, between parents and the research team, and among the members of the interdisciplinary team themselves. In turn, it makes it possible to establish a democratic space in school life.