How can the epistemological and empirical convergences of environmental education and educommunication qualify climate education public policies in Brazil?

• Grant number: 24/05228-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2024
• End date: January 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications
• Principal Investigator: Ismar de Oliveira Soares
• Grantee: Rachel Aline Hidalgo Munhoz
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 23/08836-2 - How educommunication can expand and qualify climate education practices in Basic Education in Brazil, AP.PP

Abstract

Facing the climate emergency involves the effort to establish a dialogue of knowledge between different disciplines, epistemologies, and practices (DRYZEK, 2005; LEFF, 2006; HAJER, 1995), which demands facing the challenge of the tension between reduction and complexity (MORIN, 2005). If the abandonment of the common world generates a general distrust of facts, it is necessary to disseminate reliable information and mainly to rebuild the sense of collectivity (LATOUR, 2020; BUCCI, 2023). It is precisely in this interface between communication and education, understood as cultural processes (BARBERO, 2008) with emancipatory potential (FREIRE 1985), and drawing on the practices of popular communication and popular education in Latin America that the field of educommunication has been consolidating itself in Brazil over the last 25 years (SOARES, 2011, 2012, 2014) and can be understood as an Epistemology of the South (ROSA, 2020). There are still few studies, however, on the interface between public policies on educommunication and environmental education (BRIANEZI and GATTÁS, 2022) and on the potential of educommunication to expand and qualify social participation (TOTH, MERTENS and MAKIUCHI, 2012). This research, therefore, contributes to expanding scientific knowledge about the relationship between educommunication, environmental education, and public management and to testing, evaluating, systematizing, and disseminating innovative social climate education technologies based on educommunication practices in the Elementary School stage, which make a face the challenges posed by both complex socio-environmental issues and the increase in misinformation and help promote the mobilization of school communities in defense of their territories.