RESEARCH SEEDBEDS AND CRITICAL TRANSVERSALITY OF KNOWLEDGE: POSSIBILITIES FOR PRACTICE IN SCHOOLS

Abstract

The article presents a scientific essay that examines the relationship between school-based research groups (research seedbeds) and the critical transversalization of knowledge in schooling, drawing on a review and critical juxtaposition of recent academic literature on the social appropriation of knowledge. Methodologically, the paper is structured as an argumentative discussion that delineates three key conceptual categories, research seedbeds, critical transversalization, and the production of school knowledge, while identifying challenges associated with disciplinary fragmentation, the predominance of the prescribed curriculum, and results-oriented assessment practices. These conditions are then contrasted with findings reported in educational research and documented experiences of research seedbeds. The analysis indicates that critical transversalization is not achieved through the mere addition of cross-cutting topics, but rather through transformations in the pedagogical conditions that enable the articulation of knowledge around socially relevant problems. Within this framework, research seedbeds are shown to hold potential for reorienting schooling toward practices of inquiry, argumentation, collaboration, and the public communication of knowledge. However, their scope is constrained when they are reduced to compliance mechanisms, particularly under institutional limitations such as restricted school time, uneven pedagogical mentoring, limited curricular legitimacy, and assessment criteria that privilege outputs over formative processes. The essay concludes that a viable response to this problem lies in integrating research seedbeds into the curriculum as a recognized pedagogical practice, supported by formative assessment criteria and minimum institutional conditions that sustain continuity, so that inquiry and the transversalization of knowledge become constitutive of everyday school life.