vol. 14 núm. 23 (2007): julio - diciembre

Cioran, philosopher, literati, author of provocative syllogisms, Romanian and Parisian, is one of the most interesting and individualistic thinkers of the prolific twentieth century. Today, as a new cultural horizon, post modernism, seems definitively established on a global level, it is worth revisiting his work and his reflections since, within them one finds a reaffirmation of some of the values that, in large part, the present lacks. Beyond a point of view, beyond our own time's ultimate perspective, salvaging of the present moment is dealt with by Cioran through filling every instant of a person's existence with life, suspended from his or her status as a subject and distanced from history's inviolable devices. There, Cioran finds a place for friendship, absolute recovery of liberty and the unpredictability of the individual, and for us, a new route to continue to delve into alternative possibilities in the face of the current state of things.

The construction of a pedagogical project of the Educating City upon the frame of globalization processes of democracy, constitutes a great challenge for citizen participation, and consequently, a dare to the education actions, understanding by an educating act as a political and ethical act that opens doors to knowledge and the construction of a new and active citizenship committed to the urban project in its own city.The pedagogical act of learning-teaching process of the city constitutes an interdisciplinary process where the knowing of the knowledge object and the didactic principles that give direction the scientific, critical and reflexive appropriation of the city converge in their many complex processes such as historical, socio-economic, political, cultural, ethical among other aspects.It is essential to feed participation along with the formation process of human beings. We need to feed it since the childhood. That participation must be learned and fed, otherwise it can get lost. Once it is lost, depression takes place and leads to a state where democratic participation is impossible.However, the participation has another very important connotation for cities development which becomes in an irreplaceable technical instrument when dealing with method conceptions or forms of planning whose expressions are different kinds of plans that are available for city planning experts nowadays. Currently, a planning process lacking participation is considered hardly sustainable and unfeasible.To sum up, the social existence of human beings can only be perpetuating through the continuous perfecting of their social conscience. Education plays a significant role in the previous idea because its efficiency is directly proportional to the achievement of reflexive subjects committed with their social and cultural surroundings. When transmitting the fundamental features of culture, all educative projects can also be called political acts.

Memory, as an account that reveals the traces that historical facts impress on a collective, is dealt with by such group so as to call attention to its spirit, to its identity. It is in that manner that intercultural dialogues that energize the cultures with which they interact develop; through the perception that each culture has of the other and of itself based on such accounts. Memory is therefore used to manage time and to regulate forgetfulness in order to reach an understanding with life.Cultures mediate between literal and figurative memory in order to conquer the fear that results in amnesia, and the hyper-memory thatimpedes forgiveness. Collective action is impossible without indentifying-links, without memory-links, without the feeling of belonging to an story-line where each person finds himself on a symbolic map; and, at the same time, there is no productive dynamic if the elements that comprise identity do not allow themselves to be questioned by that which exists outside its symbolic borders.A community that generates an evaluative memory can affect its future, i.e., it is a community that can chart a project through the memory function that permits repeated identification, examination, reenactment and reliving of earlier experiences (perlaboration).

The family and the school are a referential frame essential for the incorporation of a new human being to the society, however, this frameis found to be exposed to the changes imposed by the diverse transformations that are to be assumed by both institutions in order to respond to their educative and socializing task.The following revision on the alliance family-school aims at supporting the potential that would be obtained through the strengthening of such relation, particularly on the regions that look for a development that promotes the human capacities, of the individual, the institutions and the context in general.Based on the information above the social capital, the school and the family are defined inside the cultural-historical line as well as they areconsidered from an international and national perspective according to several research that have been carried out on the alliance family–school.

El Área Metropolitana de Santiago (AMS) es el centro neurálgico de la Región Metropolitana (RM), una región que ocupa el 2% del territorio nacional donde reside una población de 6,1 millones de habitantes, lo que representa el 40,1% del total de la población que vive en el país y donde prácticamente el 97% es población urbana. El Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) de la RM representa el 48% del país lo que hace que la dinámica económica de esta región supere largamente a la del resto del país. Así entonces, el AMS no sólo es el motor de la economía nacional, sino la principal fuente de capital social y político del país. En términos político-administrtativos, la RM está compuesta por 6 2 provincias y 52 comunas , donde el AMS agrupa 34 comunas; 32 pertenecientes a la Provincia de Santiago, más las comunas de Puente Alto y San Bernardo, cuyos municipios son capitales de las provincias Cordillera y Maipo, respectivamente. En esta área metropolitana residen 5,4 millones de habitantes, casi un 90% de la población total de la región, donde cabe consignar que al año del CENSO 2002 Puente Alto superó los 500 mil habitantes mientras San Bernardo los 250 mil habitantes, ambos prácticamente doblando su población en el período intercensal 1992-2002, lo que grafica en parte el proceso de urbanización acelerado en la periferia que acompañó la última década al AMS. 

In order to diminish the risks (threats) and to profit from the opportunities associated with globalization in the context of local economic development, it is necessary to strengthen attitudes towards what is "local" and in conjunction therewith, to develop objectives and design and apply strategies and policies.In support of the foregoing thesis, the following pages will develop and clarify the concept of local economic development used for purposes of analysis, as well as well as the manner in which the concept of globalization is perceived, its origins, the forces that drive it and its potential impact (risks and opportunities) on economic, political and cultural developmental aspects. The presentation concludes by demonstrating the importance of strengthening attitudes towards the concept of the "local" as well as of formulating and implementing strategies and policies in terms of locally centered and developed objectives (“autochthonous development) in order to successfully overcome the challenge posed by globalization to local development. (The local as key to success of the global).

This document raises from a preamble and two topics that develop the body of the contents: 1. Challenges of culture, and 2 challenges of the school world in terms of citizenship.The preamble locates the social daily practices of the young students in the educational environment which derives in the need to look at the different rhythms that experience the school institutions from social, cultural, economic and political dynamics.Also the changes that affect the processes of construction of the subjectivity of the students are considered specifically in the environments of the culture and of the configuration of the citizenship The challenges that come from the culture, take us to the stage of the socialization and from there to the school institution seen as the space where the dialogues, exchanges, confrontations are carried out and specially the production of subjectivities.Then, it invites us to look at the school world in terms of the citizenship and proposes to us several aspects from which it will look at the role of the educational institutions in this field: the historical condition, as a form to exercise the social issue, the social thing and the cultural thing, the rules, the rights and duties, the possibilities and opportunities, and the challenges towards future the school world must face to contribute in the configuration of the citizens.We think that in this way, we take part of the reflection about the new environments in which citizenship takes place and is performed, in this case, from the educational view and facing it as a matter of human development in the liberating perspective of the human kind.

This article approaches the traditional conceptions about the political subject in order to widen them through a characterization of a dialectical game between the public and the private dimensions in which he acts.The notion resulting from this discussion is confronted with the context of the Colombian conflict. It is assumed, from this perspective, that the Political Subject is not a finished subject, but it is a subject in permanent construction, who is constantly looking for strategies and mechanisms to improve and transform his own reality. Accordingly, the ducational process (both formal and non-formal) may potentiate the subject's structuring.