Dicotomia, complexidade e educação para a cidadania

Abstract

Human life in the most different spheres, from social organization, through the development of sciences, reaching even fundamental elements of individual identities, was marked by a dichotomous paradigm, which produced a binary way of interpreting reality (right and wrong, rich and poor, east and west, north and south etc.). This text seeks to analyze the consequences of this binary thinking and the extent to which it produces social injustice, especially in the educational context, envisioning, in the complexity paradigm, an alternative for the construction of more citizen-like education and society. But it also searches for some possibilities of ruptures with these systems structured in and by the different social sectors, including education. Methodologically, the research can be characterized as of a basic nature in which the inductive method is used. The selection of sources and authors is arbitrary insofar as they were considered representative of the respective ideas developed. It is concluded that complex thinking offers an alternative to binary thinking at different educational levels, but its implementation in social practice is also a monumental challenge, since it presupposes the modification of behaviors deeply rooted in the culture and in the existential matrices of social agents. Thus, it is up to educational institutions to break with this dichotomy through an educational project aimed at full citizenship as an exercise of social justice.