Toward a Pedagogy of Connectedness

The present study investigates pedagogical praxes that may counter the phenomenon of disconnectedness, which is widespread in today’s world. It does so by exploring the experiences of adolescent students in two aesthetically-oriented schools in Brazil that cultivate connectedness—with the self, with others, and with the world—as a central curricular theme. To carry out the research, I developed a methodology that combines narrative inquiry and visual-based methods. I selected a group of five ninth-graders at each of the school sites and invited them to participate in a series of encontros in which they created collective fictional stories based on their own experiences within and beyond their school. These stories were complemented by visual narratives collected through school observations. The analysis of the oral and visual narratives points to a divide between the movement towards the connectedness that students live within their school and the disconnecting rationale that prevails in the outside world. Furthermore, it reveals the conscious and unconscious moves that students make to mediate this divide. Based on the findings, I suggest seven pedagogical praxes that can be explored by schools to cultivate connectedness as a central theme in the formation of young citizens today: (1) artistic engagements, (2) sensory explorations, (3) valorization of authentic cultures, (4) caring relationships, (5) habits of reflexivity, (6) uncomfortable dialogues, and (7) collective agency.