Pedagogy of Care and Community Thinking for a New Cognitive Democracy: Theories of Play and Practices of Power

Abstract

This work is a reflection on the need to promote, from the earliest years of life, educational pathways aimed at the care – and formation – of community thinking. To this end, it highlights how the playful nature of the educational experience can enable the pupil “to cultivate” his or her neotenic potential. With a view to eco-sustainability, the question is therefore first and foremost: is it possible to educate, starting from school, to shared reflection and democratic thinking? What role does play, in this perspective, the game? Is it possible to act on pedagogical devices from a conscious co-management of the relevant settings? And what connection is there between developmental dynamics, the dispositional organisation of bodies and new forms of contact? These are original questions that place the work on the borderline between different areas of knowledge, involving not only pedagogy – and theories of play – but also architecture and ecology.