Collective social perspective about the environment and development

Abstract

This article corresponds to the research, named “Collective academic perspective about the Environment and Development at the Faculty of Social Work in La Salle University, Environmental Engineering and Architecture”, conducted during the second semester of 2005 and the first one of 2006. Its objective was focused on finding the collective imaginary from teachers and students, in order to establish comparisons and make some corresponding suggestions to academic work at the University. The research methodology was of exploratory and qualitative nature. The SPAD-T program was used for the result analysis, with which classification spoken by the social characters was improved and, based on these aspects; some drafts were made that allowed to establish the most recurrent presentations and the possible similarities in the subjects’ ideas. Some results on the imaginary show an important interest on the students’ as well as the teachers’ part in an interdisciplinary work on the field of environment and development. From different areas differences between the imaginary are shown, but between teachers and students from the same faculty there is the idea of agreement. From a traditional paradigm it is relevant to conceive human being as the centre of universe; an idea of domination over it is implied. However, some later discussions based on the Theory of Chaos reveal an important sensitivity between the students from different faculties on the topic of poverty and forced migration of social groups in the country into the main Colombian cities.