Strengthening democracy through citizenship education and participation in times of neoliberal ideology: Searching for an inclusive framework

The neoliberal ideology is dramatically changing the field of education. By applying enterprise and market-oriented principles to education, neoliberalism has transformed the relation between students and educators. Educators see the precarization of their work conditions by increasing accountability because neoliberalism is based on the promise that education can be capitalized and result in better jobs. At the same time, citizens show high dissatisfaction with representative democracy. Citizens do not trust politicians and do not exercise their rights to vote in elections. Frustration with education, work, and focus on individualism and consumerism, lack of collective actions, absence of sense of community and apathy towards politics are all repercussions of neoliberalism. The purpose of this study is to find an inclusive framework that promotes critical citizenship education and participation. By analyzing the Participatory Budget model as it started in Porto Alegre, Brazil, we could see that the more people participate in direct democracy and see the results, the more they want to participate. From a study of the application of the Participatory Budget in schools, we learned that the more people learn how to participate, the more they participate. Through citizenship education and participation in deliberation and decision-making processes, people develop political critical awareness, increased sense of community and emancipation and this is a tremendous antidote to neoliberal policies. The tango between critical citizenship education and participation in deliberation and decision-making processes promotes social justice and develops a strong form of democracy where marginalized voices are heard and the status quo is challenged

Neotropical freshwater fisheries : A dataset of occurrence and abundance of freshwater fishes in the Neotropics

The Neotropical region hosts 4225 freshwater fish species, ranking first among the world's most diverse regions for freshwater fishes. Our NEOTROPICAL FRESHWATER FISHES data set is the first to produce a large-scale Neotropical freshwater fish inventory, covering the entire Neotropical region from Mexico and the Caribbean in the north to the southern limits in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. We compiled 185,787 distribution records, with unique georeferenced coordinates, for the 4225 species, represented by occurrence and abundance data. The number of species for the most numerous orders are as follows: Characiformes (1289), Siluriformes (1384), Cichliformes (354), Cyprinodontiformes (245), and Gymnotiformes (135). The most recorded species was the characid Astyanax fasciatus (4696 records). We registered 116,802 distribution records for native species, compared to 1802 distribution records for nonnative species. The main aim of the NEOTROPICAL FRESHWATER FISHES data set was to make these occurrence and abundance data accessible for international researchers to develop ecological and macroecological studies, from local to regional scales, with focal fish species, families, or orders. We anticipate that the NEOTROPICAL FRESHWATER FISHES data set will be valuable for studies on a wide range of ecological processes, such as trophic cascades, fishery pressure, the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation, and the impacts of species invasion and climate change. There are no copyright restrictions on the data, and please cite this data paper when using the data in publications

Núcleos de Ensino da Unesp: artigos 2008

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq