City as an Educational Context: Development of Civic Competence in Childhood Education and Children with Educational Support Needs

This article describes and evaluates an experience of educational innovation developed in the childhood stage in five schools and in a specific center, for students with specific needs for educational support. The innovation focuses on a learning approach, based on projects to investigate the historical-cultural heritage of the city of Cordoba. The theoretical framework that supports this innovation integrates four basic concepts: (1) Early Cildhood Education as a stage of special educational plasticity; (2) The Patrimonial Education; (3) Intercultural Education and (4) Project Based Learning. The project "La Mezquita" is selected to evaluate the level of compliance with the established objectives, which are related to the analysis of the educational potential of the city of Cordoba with the identification of the competences acquired by the children involved and, with the strengths and weaknesses of this experience. It is an exploratory and transversal study that is carried out through a case study. Various instruments and techniques are used: documentary analysis, interviews and pedagogical documentation. The most relevant findings are: (1) Discovery of the city's potential as an educational context for the development of children and students with specific needs for educational support; (2) Development of civic competence and respect for differences; (3) The transfer and continuity that Patrimonial Education promotes as an educational space in which, both the family and the school, intervene.