Folkloric Dance, a Pedagogical Strategy to Favor Interpersonal Relationships in Elementary School Children

Abstract

The objective of this research was to explore the incidence of a pedagogical strategy in folk-loric dance in favoring interpersonal relationships of 4th grade children of an educational in-stitution in the municipality of Tuluá-Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The methodology was ap-proached from the qualitative approach, which uses categories that allow the analysis of the data obtained through grounded theory. The method was educational action research, which allowed the construction and reconstruction of pedagogical knowledge, including self-criticism and pedagogical shortcomings of the process. The population consisted of fourth grade children of the educational institution and the convenience sample, which avoids proba-bilistic or random aspects, included 10 boys and 10 girls, aged between 8 and 10 years old. Information was triangulated with the following instruments: observation record, interview and field diary. The systematization and analysis of the information was carried out by means of content analysis. An intervention proposal in folkloric dance, called Rondangos, was ap-plied with the didactic methods of problem solving and guided discovery, to favor interper-sonal relationships. The results showed the favoring of group work, respect, participation, leadership, collaboration in the classroom, creativity, imagination, values formation and mo-tor development. It is concluded that folkloric dance as a pedagogical strategy contributes to the formation of personal aspects, through changes in attitude and mainly with the develop-ment of essential social skills to generate assertive interaction experiences. In synthesis, the findings led to the consideration of folkloric dance as a pedagogical strategy in the enrich-ment of interpersonal relationships.