The construction of humanity

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Maria Helena Pires
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Cadernos Cenpec
• Texto Completo: http://cadernos.cenpec.org.br/cadernos/index.php/cadernos/article/view/60
• topic: Educação; Ciências Sociais; Cultura; Cultura. Educação; Culture. Education

This article presents a conceptual approach in terms education and culture, the former being defined as a process of humanization of the individual and the second one as the attribution of meaning to the world and to ourselves. The author expands the initially proposed meaning of culture, advancing her arguments on the different acceptations of the term and claims that it can be understood as: 1) an answer to human needs and expectations, modifying to the extent that these needs and expectations change; 2) the feeling that one belongs to a group or community that many times gives rise to the construction of common identities and that is configured as the base for the establishment of the communication between people from a same group or from groups that recognize to be different from each other; 3) arts, material and immaterial cultural assets. Education, both formal and informal, presents an intrinsic relationship with these different senses of culture, being not only responsible for transmitting cultural manifestations cumulated by certain groups - the cultural asset -, but also taking responsibility for stimulating creation. Considering the fundamental role of education in relation to culture, the author highlights the need for turning school into a plural cultural environment where students can experience their own culture and that of other peoples.