https://doi.org/10.37955/cs.v6i3.275
Received June 14, 2022 / Approved October, 23 2022 Pages: 1-16
eISSN: 2600-5743
Collaborative work as a didactic
strategy to mitigate the inadequate
coexistence between Venezuelan
and Colombian students.
El trabajo colaborativo estrategia didáctica para mitigar
la inadecuada convivencia entre estudiantes venezolanos
y colombianos
Ana Maria Frias Jimenez
Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana, Historian, specialist in pedagogy.
Anahistory87@gmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4040-9030
Antonio Jesús padilla correa
Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana, Historian, specialist in pedagogy
antoniopadillax@hotmail.com, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1024-2903
Juan Gabriel Castañeda Polanco
Corporación Universitaria Iberoamericana, Psychologist
juan,castañeda@ibero.edu.co, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7632-7526
ABSTRACT
The objective of this research project is to mitigate school coexistence
problems between Colombian and Venezuelan students through the
implementation of collaborative work as a didactic strategy to achieve this
goal. The project was based on the qualitative approach and action research.
Tools such as focus group, semi-structured interview and direct observation
were used. It was divided into 4 phases. The first phase consisted of
carrying out a diagnostic analysis through the interview instrument in order
to know through the testimonial source the level of difficulty with respect to
the coexistence scenario. In the second phase, the didactic strategy based on
collaborative work was applied, taking as a starting point the choice of
certain topics that would generate impact and help the purpose of the work.
In the third phase, the degree of assertiveness of the applied strategy was
analyzed, as well as the opportunities for improvement of the group, with
the participation of the teachers of the areas of Spanish, religion and ethics
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in this stage. Finally, the results were analyzed and showed signs of
progress in the elimination of discriminatory and segregating scenarios of
some students towards others. In the conclusions, the need to adapt the IEP,
the curriculum, generate new spaces for interaction that enable collaborative
work, respect and empathy, and train the teaching staff in the use of
appropriate strategies to maintain a coexistence environment based on
respect for differences is taken for granted.
RESUMEN
El presente trabajo investigativo tiene como objetivo mitigar los problemas
de convivencia escolar entre estudiantes colombianos y venezolanos por medio
de la implementación del trabajo colaborativo como estrategia didáctica para
alcanzar este fin. El proyecto se fundamentó en el enfoque cualitativo y la
investigación acción. Se usaron herramientas como (grupo focal, entrevista
semiestructurada y observación directa). Se dividió en 4 fases. La primera
fase consistió en realizar un análisis diagnóstico a través del instrumento de
la entrevista para conocer mediante la fuente testimonial el nivel de
dificultad respecto al escenario convivencial. En la segunda fase, se aplicó
la estrategia didáctica basada en el trabajo colaborativo, para esto se tomó
como punto de partida la elección de ciertos temas que generaran impacto y
ayudaran ampliamente a la finalidad del trabajo. En la tercera fase, se
analizó el grado de asertividad de la estrategia aplicada, así como las
oportunidades de mejora del grupo, se contó con la participación de los
docentes de las áreas de castellano, religión y ética en esta etapa. Finalmente,
se procedió al análisis de los resultados, estos arrojaron muestras de avance
en la eliminación de escenarios discriminatorios y segregadores de unos
estudiantes hacia otros. En las conclusiones se deja por sentada la necesidad
de adecuar el PEI, el currículo, generar nuevos espacios de interacción que
posibiliten trabajo colaborativo, respeto y empatía y capacitar al cuerpo
docente en la utilización de estrategias adecuadas para mantener un
ambiente convivencial fundamentado en el respeto por las diferencias.
Keywords / Palabras clave
inclusion, interculturality, segregation, collaborative work
inclusión, interculturalidad, segregación, trabajo colaborativo
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Introduction
This article is framed in the analysis of some coexistence problems
that exist between Venezuelan and Colombian students. Through
direct observation and the use of tools such as the semi-structured
interview and the focus group, it is observed that some internal
conflicts between the students in question are given for 3 reasons.
The first reason explains that this situation is due to the
misconceptions (prejudices) that have been built and reproduced
from outside the institution to the inside. The Venezuelan population
has been stereotyped as unwelcome people who come to "take jobs,
destroy families, steal and engage in prostitution (Taborda Burgo,
2021). These thoughts indeed influence and are reproduced by the
student population and have triggered the segregation of Venezuelan
students within the group (Valiente Oscar,2008). In addition to this, a
characteristic of the population in context is its high degree of
hermeticity, where every new subject in their community is
understood as strange, problematic and possibly alien to their ideas.
As a second reason, the problems are due to the existing academic
level between one population and the other. The young migrants
show a high degree of commitment to their academic activities and
also show a higher level of understanding and argumentation of the
topics addressed. In the eyes of the Colombian students, this is seen
as an affront, as they think that they are trying to ridicule them in
front of their peers. This leads to an attack on the academic positions
of Venezuelan students.
Finally, it was observed that a fundamental reason for the clash and
the continuity of coexistence problems is that the institutional IEP is
not adequate to receive and include populations coming from
cultures foreign to those of the sector (Ruiz Román,2009). To this
extent, it is not only a matter of respecting the right to education and
allowing the enrollment and formal integration of Venezuelan youths
to school, but also of creating spaces that allow their equal and
equitable inclusion in all institutional aspects and allow a healthy
coexistence within the group (MEN, 2020).
Inadequate coexistence among students within the educational
community is characterized as verbal (Fierro-Evans, 2019). Such
characterizations have not transcended in any instance to the
physical. However, it is evident that the inadequate coexistence is
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expressed through the dismissive treatment of Colombian students
towards Venezuelan students, the use of inappropriate language to
refer to foreign classmates. They have been called "venecos", a word
with a high social and cultural content (excluding and pejorative).
The manifestations of the problem become visible during the
realization of activities based on collaborative groups (Sagredo
Emilio, 2020). It is observed that internal conflicts are generated in
the groups. The students do not know how to express their ideas in
an assertive manner, they do not know how to respect diversity and
differences, which leads to inadequate coexistence.
Bearing in mind the above, the research group proposes to
implement collaborative work as a didactic strategy to mitigate the
bad coexistence between Colombian and Venezuelan students within
the group to try to show young people that cultural or thought
differences should not be the origin of coexistence problems, since it
should be understood and accepted that all individuals have
particular characteristics that differentiate one from the other. With
this we seek to improve the environment within the educational
community and reduce the actions of inadequate coexistence within
it (Ramírez Íñiguez, 2020).
Therefore, it was proposed as a general objective:
Implement collaborative work as a didactic strategy to
mitigate inadequate coexistence among Colombian students.
The specific objectives are as follows:
Diagnose in students the degree of prejudices and stereotypes
they hold and their relationship with exclusion, discrimination
and intolerance to difference .
Identify what elements and actions allow the understanding of
the negative consequences generated by the disintegration of
relationships between students .
To design a didactic strategy based on the manifestation of
rejection and critical stance in the face of any act of
discrimination or situation that violates rights, supporting
initiatives that facilitate the prevention of such situations.
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Materials and Methods
The approach on which the work is based is the qualitative one,
which allows giving explanations to certain social phenomena based
on the analysis of these and facilitates understanding the relationship
between the subject and its context. This type of research is
characterized by subjectivity in the interpretation of the information
because the individual is often influenced by ideologies, emotions
and behaviors (Sampieri Roberto, 2014). To develop work based on
this approach, the following aspects must be taken into account:
history of the context, cultural relations present in the space
addressed, sociopolitical relations of individuals and contextual
analysis at the physical, social and material level, for which
techniques such as interviews, direct observation, group analysis,
among others, are used (Mesias Oswaldo, 2017).
The type of research used is the Action Research (AR) understood as
an investigative process that allows the participation of the individual
who applies it and the search for solutions and improvements to the
established approaches, in this sense the AR analyzes actions and
problems of social, educational and other types in order to seek
improvements in the actions applied to this, understand the need to
implement an action research for training and improvement (Murillo
Francisco, 2010-2011). Among the main characteristics of this
research we can highlight that it interprets the phenomena 'starting
from the perception of those who participate in them, improves and
transforms the subject in which it is implemented and its main
purpose is to understand rather than marry with pre-established
conceptions or particular perceptions (Elliot Jhon, 2000).
As for the procedure implemented, 4 phases are proposed for the
development of the research work. Diagnostic, strategy design,
execution and evaluation, supported by tools such as the semi-
structured interview, the focus group and direct observation for the
diagnosis and analysis of the research results.
Results
The diagnostic phase will take into account the first impression
perceived in the group regarding the problem raised, the behaviors
that certain Colombian students have towards Venezuelan migrants
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in their group will be analyzed, and the instruments that will be used
to understand the edges of the phenomenon will be created. Based on
the information obtained in the diagnostic phase, a didactic strategy
based on collaborative work will be created, taking into account that
it must respond to the needs demonstrated and allow solving them.
For this purpose, the hexagon pedagogical model will be used. After
this, the implementation and follow-up of the proposed activities is
carried out. Once the implementation is finished, an interview with
the students will be conducted, as well as the socialization of the
teachers' observations and those of the students. The experiences of
each one will be taken and later, through the analysis and tabulation
of the results, the level of reach of the implemented strategy will be
analyzed. In this phase, the achievement of the objectives set will be
evaluated, as well as the impact that it had and could have to continue
in this line of work. The analysis of the data obtained yielded several
results regarding the reasons for the coexistence problems in the
classroom and to what extent the collaborative work strategy was
effective in the search to improve relations among students and in
turn create a healthy environment of respectful relations within the
group. The systematization and direct observation confirmed that the
behavior of Colombian students towards Venezuelans is substantially
influenced by stereotypes that have been built outside the school and
that in one way or another have been reproduced and consolidated in
a large part of the student population.
It is clear that collaborative work as a didactic strategy must have a
thorough design that responds to the particularities of all learners,
and awareness must be raised before the creation and
implementation of this type of strategy (Morales Gina, 2021). In this
category, it was possible to observe in depth the possible causes of
coexistence problems and feasible solutions; during the
implementation of the collaborative work, the young people
interrelated with each other, momentarily putting aside their
differences in order to achieve the objective of the activity. However,
once the activity was over, some students returned to the subgroups
formed by the Venezuelan minorities.
The results show that the problems of coexistence are marked by the
non-acceptance of the differences that Venezuelan immigrants may
have and that their solution is a work that needs greater development
and participation of all the parties that make up the educational
community present, teachers, directors, parents and social work.
Although the number of clashes among the students has decreased,
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there are still some difficulties of coexistence within the group. More
spaces for interaction are needed in the school to encourage good
coexistence among students of all cultures, the ideologies that have
been built from the outside have framed the Venezuelan student
population within the school and in one way or another this has
generated much of the clashes. the implementation of the strategy
has shown that the environment can be improved at the time of
collaborative work, but this improvement should be extended to all
shared spaces inside and outside the school (Mora María, 2021).
Carrying out this type of research work is a task that implies a high
level of understanding of the social phenomena that are interwoven
in places where several cultures and individuals interact, social
relations will always be framed in ideologies that are built as a result of
behaviors and identities of any population. Attempting to generalize the
behaviors of populations belonging to specific places is misleading, as it
often leads to discrimination and the creation of segregating
stereotypes that only generate an inadequate coexistence
demonstrated in the clashes that occur between subjects present in
the same context and belonging to different ethnicities or ideological
currents.
Interventions or improvements for this type of phenomena must be
created based on the particularities of all, thus avoiding the
unconscious use of segregation as a method of solution (Ramírez
Íñiguez ,2020). It is not about separating or uniting groups, it is
about creating strategies that allow a healthy interaction based on
respect for the ideas and differences of all.
In order to achieve the goals proposed in this type of work, a joint
effort must be made between family and school, given the incidence
that both agents have in the development of certain behaviors in
young people. The problems that are being generated within schools
are the living expression of the stereotypes created outside these
contexts. It is imperative to adapt the institutional IEP, basing it on
inclusive and intercultural laws that are not utopian, that are
applicable to the context and that allow its implementation in an
assertive way and improve the school environment.
These scenarios where problems of convivial type are recreated
directly related to the culture to which one belongs or not, allow to
carry out and implement all kinds of methods to understand the
causes, implement strategies to remedy them and evaluate the impact
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in terms of improvements or transformations, concluding this part of
the research project, several things can be affirmed. First, it can be
stated that most of the inclusive laws proposed by the government do
not respond efficiently to the needs of existing minorities in state
schools, likewise the conditions for the integration and interaction of
all students do not meet the needs of certain groups of students in a
complete and timely manner. It is possible to try to solve the
coexistence problems from the teachers' work, but it is difficult to
work without a coherent and fluid articulation between them, the
families and the governmental policies, it is necessary to train the
population in general in topics related to the respect for the
differences and to create spaces that allow the implementation of
these methods in order to improve the coexistence environment in
any space, be it educational, work.
Conclusions
To conclude, it can be affirmed that social constructions strongly
mark the type of relationships that can be developed in any space, the
existing relationships within the school are clearly directed by
external agents and ideologies, as well as by basic needs of some
groups that have not been attended and have triggered a pejorative
look towards them. The educational community needs to implement
new strategies to decrease the level of bad coexistence existing within
the school, since the constant clashes between young people are on
the increase and although it has not transcended to the physical, it
can be affirmed that there is an imaginary one and that these can be
materialized in the future.
As Colombia is a receiving country of Venezuelan migrants, their
enrollment in official educational institutions is a growing
phenomenon that must be adequately and effectively addressed. It is
not only about allowing migrants to enter school respecting their
"right to education", it is about adapting the space so that their
development can be assertive and inclusive. The implementation of
the strategies stipulated by the government to attend to this
population within the schools has made clear the existence of gaps
and limitations within the schools, this has generated that in many
occasions the attention to migrant students is ineffective. Finally, it is
necessary and important to attend to the enrolled migrant population
and for this it is necessary to train teachers in strategies that allow
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the healthy interaction of all students of the different groups, as well
as to design adequate spaces for the participation of all within the
different educational projects, to adapt the PEI and the curriculum is
imperative and to teach based on differences, interculturality, respect
and inclusion. All of the above is something necessary within the
school (Ascorra Paula,2016).
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