The emergence and expansion of social networks in the digital age has led to social transformations that have a great impact within the field of education. Teacher-training programs face the challenge of preparing future teachers to critically interpret digital media. They must succeed in this if we are to develop citizens who are well informed and reflective, which then raises the question: Are future teachers critical thinkers? This study took third- and fourth-year students of primary education (n = 322) at five Spanish universities and explored their capacity for constructing critical discourses. It examined how well they can analyze and discuss information from digital media on social problems like poverty, economic crises, social justice, and the media. Its findings reveal that future teachers have difficulty in putting together critical discourses based on information from the Internet on social problems. Those who have doubts, compare, analyze, and reason are the minority.

The transformations caused by the proliferation of social media in the Digital Age are having a huge impact on the field of education. Teacher training programmes are faced with the challenge of preparing future teachers to interpret digital media critically. Creating an informed, reflective citizenry depends on this training. This leads to the question: Are future teachers critical thinkers? This study inquires into the capacities of students in their third and fourth years of the Bachelor’s degree in Primary Education at five Spanish universities (n = 322) to construct critical discourses. This study examines their capacities to analyse and discuss information from social media on controversial issues around gender violence, machismo, LGBTIQ persons, homophobia, intolerance and undemocratic attitudes. The results reveal the future teachers’ difficulties developing critical discourses based on online news items on controversial issues. Only a minority doubt, check, analyse and argue critically.

The concept of Environmental Citizenship, as it has been developed in this project, calls for the development of specific awareness, attitudes, skills, behaviours and competences that need to be cultivated from early childhood for active civic participation. Primary formal education could provide opportunities for the achievement of these goals. In this chapter, we elaborate on how Environmental Citizenship, which provides the specifics of age and formal settings, could be approached and the educational strategies that could be recommended or avoided based on the existing literature. This chapter also provides an overview of the most important educational aims regarding the development of Environmental Citizenship in primary formal education. These include environmental sensitivity, a sense of justice, a basic understanding of ecological systems, necessary skills for the investigation of ecological and social phenomena, and action skills that relate to active participation in community issues. We suggest that successful educational interventions, integrated pedagogical approaches and key designing principles could promote Environmental Citizenship at primary schools. In addition, effective training and professional development programmes can equip teachers with the knowledge, values, skills and strategies necessary to implement Environmental Citizenship at this level.

The following article inquires how introducing the gender category, feminism theories, and intersectionality into social sciences education, especially regarding historical thinking development, could be key for the construction of a more critical and egalitarian future. The main research problem is knowing how the use of the gender category is included, or not, in the development of historical thinking in pre-service teacher beliefs and how it could condition them when they work on historical and social problems in the classroom. The main objective is to analyze the historical thinking development in pre-service Spanish teacher students and their capacity for constructing critical discourses with a gender perspective. Pre-service teachers of five Spanish universities (of the Primary and Secondary Education Degree) were asked about a report from a digital newspaper version that forces them to use historical thinking and to consider gender stereotypes and prejudices. Their responses were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results indicate that pre-service teachers are not able to identify their own gender roles and prejudiced attitudes when they attempt to explain a social problem and they propose solutions, even when they could verify that there was another manner to understand this report. Hence, this research highlights the relevance of implementing feminism, intersectionality, and gender category for historical thinking development since these future teachers need to work around democratic culture competences. By contrast, not including this perspective will lead to them still maintaining historical thinking and democracy configured on hegemonic, heteropatriarchal, sexist, and Eurocentric cultural models.

El presente trabajo parte de las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿La educación histórica con perspectiva de género en la formación inicial de profesorado es clave en la construcción de un futuro más crítico e igualitario? ¿Cómo se percibe, por parte del alumnado, el desarrollo de esta competencia? ¿Cómo expresan lo que esta perspectiva de género aportará a su futura labor docente? La investigación, de corte cualitativo y longitudinal (2013-2017) toma como muestra alumnado de tercer curso del Grado en Educación Primaria de la Universidad de Jaén en la asignatura «Educación Histórica y ciudadanía: una perspectiva de género». Se utiliza como instrumento un cuestionario que supone la reflexión sobre los resultados de aprendizaje previstos en la asignatura y se analiza el discurso del alumnado con respecto a 6 ítems. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran no solo la toma de conciencia crítica por parte del alumnado, sino que además consideran que es una parte fundamental de su formación a fin de realizar una futura función docente que, incluyendo esta perspectiva de género, suponga una verdadera educación histórica que lleve a la participación democrática y a la toma de decisiones discentes en la construcción de su futuro.

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una retrospectiva de 15 años (2004-2019) sobre la evolución de las propuestas de trabajo, líneas de investigación y docencia que, con respecto a la enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales con perspectiva de género, se ha desarrollado en nuestro contexto y su transferencia a las aulas de educación obligatoria, bachillerato y universidad. Se reflexiona sobre el trabajo realizado, el contexto actual y las líneas futuras.