2019 - 2022 |  Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.

A pedagogical tool that helps students build their own ideal world.

In collaboration with teachers and researchers, we co-created a pedagogical diagnostic tool tailored to assess the social and educational needs of children in public schools. The tool consisted of custom stickers (or magnets) representing a wide spectrum of entities: people, flora, fauna, objects, and abstract symbols.

What would your ideal world look like?

The tool was used to lead creative sessions and focus groups as part of a participatory action research study that engaged dozens of students from the Gordiano Guzmán school in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, Mexico. In these sessions, students used custom-made stickers to build their vision of an ideal world, which they then debriefed in open discussions. While the children shared their ideas, researchers from diverse disciplines observed and analysed emerging patterns, themes, and interactions, decoding the symbolism and language. Among the findings, environmental care, equality among all people, and the Importance of home, family, and community were the most recurrent themes in all interventions.

The collaboration Mundos Ideales (Making Ideal Worlds) resulted in four academic publications and led to the co-creation of a pedagogical diagnostic tool to assess the social and educational needs of children in public elementary schools in Jalisco.

A collaboration with the University of Guadalajara and the non-profit Letras para Volar for the 2019 National Strategic Education Programs of Jalisco, Mexico.

Supported by FONCA (National Endowment for Culture & Arts of Mexico), CONACYT (National Council for Humanities, Sciences and Technologies), and Instituto Transdisciplinar para la Literacidad (Transdisciplinary Institute for Literacy).