Cartografía social pedagógica en la educación rural: una estrategia participativa para reconocer, comprender y resignificar el territorio en la Institución Educativa Santiago Pérez Sede El Cairo

Abstract

Rural education and its contexts in Colombia require pedagogical strategies that respond to the population's needs. In this regard, this article presents the results of a study based on the application of the Social Pedagogical Cartography strategy with third, fourth, and fifth-grade students at the Santiago Pérez Educational Institution (El Cairo branch) in southern Tolima. The goal was to enable students to recognize, understand, and resignify their territory through the creation of participatory maps. The methodology applied was action research, using data collection instruments such as field diaries, semi-structured interviews, and cartographic maps. This exercise recognized the school as a social center and emphasized the importance of acknowledging students' local knowledge for their participation in the educational process. Furthermore, it showed how the territory becomes a living classroom, imposing geographical barriers that emotionally condition students with topophobia and topophilia, thus generating and strengthening collective memory. In summary, the implementation of Social Pedagogical Cartography in rural schools not only made it possible to recognize the territory as a dynamic learning setting but also to strengthen student participation, identity, and collective memory based on their own experiences and emotions. This approach allowed for the resignification of pedagogical practices, moving beyond traditional models toward proposals that are more contextualized, inclusive, and sensitive to rural realities. Thus, the study demonstrates that integrating the territory as a central axis of the educational process fosters meaningful learning and contributes to the formation of critical subjects capable of understanding, inhabiting, and transforming their environment, thereby projecting a more relevant rural education committed to the social and cultural dynamics of their communities.