What do students learn about may revolution in primary school? School ephemerides and its symbolic efficiency

Abstract

This work is related to a research project called "Students´ previous knowledge when learning social sciences contents, related to political notion" (Project No. 1444/05- CIUNSa). Its purpose was to obtain knowledge produced from research on teaching and learning of political notions and of effectively transmitted contents at school. What do kids learn about May Revolution? is the question that guided this work and led it to explore in classroom situations of social science teaching, how they operate in students’ previous knowledge in learning new curricula contents . The work was supported by recent studies on social skills that aim to link the Piagetian thesis of individual character of acquisition of knowledge with the theory of Social Representations. Understanding students and making them understand what they are taught is to fulfill one of the social functions of school, to form critical, participatory, and thoughtful citizens.