Significaciones imaginarias de las niñas del colegio Liceo Femenino Mercedes Nariño de Bogotá, relacionadas con la seguridad vial

Abstract

Road safety is a priority issue for a country like Colombia, since it involves the protection of its citizens' lives, especially in urban environments where most road accident-related deaths and injuries occur. This is largely due to various factors such as speeding, disobedience of traffic signals, driving under the influence of alcohol, and mechanical failures in vehicles, among others. One way to address these challenges is by teaching road safety in educational institutions. However, this has been traditionally approached from a normative perspective, aiming to promote safe behaviours and habits through traffic signs and pedestrian crossings. While this approach is useful, it fails to consider a fundamental aspect: understanding the environment, appropriate mobility depending on the transport mode, risk and vulnerability assessment in mobility, compliance with regulations, and shared responsibility in road safety (MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, 2014). Children are influenced by the social and emotional environment in which they live, which includes their relationships with adults, teachers, or authority figures. Thus, through games, daily experiences, and observing their surroundings, children create a set of imaginary meanings that reflect the social dynamics they are immersed in—meanings that do not always align with formal teachings or the objective norms of road safety. These imaginary meanings are key to understanding why certain road behaviours are internalized more quickly than others, or why some children display risky attitudes or fear in specific traffic situations. This is why the present research takes as its central axis the analysis of imaginary meanings to understand how children not only assimilate traffic rules as technical instructions, but also how these symbolic components are part of a broader network of meanings. Understanding how these imaginary meanings are formed and developed will allow us to identify gaps between formal and informal road safety education and children's interpretations, in order to design more effective pedagogical strategies that are closer to the cognitive and symbolic realities of boys and girls.