Secretaria/ Secretary

• Almudena Barrientos Báez, U. de Iriarte, España

• Inmaculada Clotilde Santos Díaz, UMA, España

• Efrén Viramontes, E. N. Ricardo Flores Magón, México

• Ester Trigo Ibáñez, UCA, España

• Marek Baran, U. de Lodz, Polonia

• Gloria Santiago Méndez, UMA, España

• Marta Sanjuán Álvarez, U. de Zaragoza, España

• Xaquín Núñez Sabarís, U. do Minho, Portugal

• Ana Cea Álvarez, U. do Minho, Portugal

• Inmaculada Guisado Sánchez, UNEX, España

• María Auxiliadora Robles Bello, UJAEN, España

• Magdalena López Pérez, UNEX, España

• Milagrosa Parrado Collantes, UCA, España

• Paula Rivera Jurado, UCA, España

• Begoña Gómez Devís, UV, España

To develop critical thinking in the educational field, one of the core principles of living in a democracy, there are numerous

resources, among which are texts, of diverse nature. Students must be trained to critically examine them, and the materials

themselves can contribute to this using presentational strategies that promote critical thinking. This article focuses on a

literary genre in which such a circumstance occurs, the picturebook. Since the textual examination requires guides, what

is proposed here is the development and validation of an analysis model, which is offered to both the scientific community

and teachers. The objective is to identify the mechanisms employed in picturebooks to foster critical thinking in their

readers. After the final validation and design process, a manageable and operational tool has been obtained that is applied

ritical thinking is one of the fundamental pillars of

a democratic citizenship (Blackmore, 2016;

Volman & Ten Dam, 2015). Critical reflection,

which includes both thinking and reading, listening, and

viewing of this nature (Izquierdo-Magaldi et al., 2020), is

lifelong learning (2006/962/EC), in which it is indicated

that critical thinking will be, along with other topics such

as problem solving or decision-making, applicable

throughout the reference framework of the aforementioned

(2006/962/EC, p. L 394/14). Among all the possible

conceptualizations of the term, this study will follow that

of McDaniel (2006, collected in Tosar and Santisteban,

2016, p. 674), who points out that “it is the practice of

analyzing texts from a critical perspective. It is not a

discourses, the press and historical accounts, this article

suggests the examination of literary texts, equally useful

for training in civic education and critical thinking (Roche,

The critical analysis of texts, regardless of their nature,

requires guides, analysis models that define categories,

scientific or educational field. This work aims to respond

to this demand, offering a tool that integrates aspects of

This genre has been extensively studied and from different

perspectives (Arizpe & Styles, 2004; Bosch, 2015; Evans,

2015; Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2015; Nikolajeva & Scott,

2006; Salisbury & Styles, 2014; Silva-Díaz, 2005; Sipe,

n/d; Sipe & Pantaleo, 2012; Van der Linden, 2015;

Zaparaín & González, 2010). In some of these studies, it

could be said in a minority, general analysis models

(Nikolajeva & Scott, 2006) or specific ones (Bosch, 2015;

Silva-Díaz, 2005) are offered. The multimodal character of

the picturebook, a product of the dialogue of the visual and

Cunningham & Enriquez (2013), to help teachers select

literary copies; the study by Leland et al. (1999) where

seven traits are indicated that would describe books that

focused on intercultural civic education through the

learning of a second language, the picturebook selection

The design offered in this article completes the previous

ones, with a proposal that allows to reveal the dynamics of

questioning in the abovementioned genre, providing the

scientific field with a structured and defined tool. All this

within a research framework of the picturebook’s potential

This study aims to achieve three objectives:

• Identify the mechanisms, both visual and verbal

• Design and validate an analysis instrument that

• Apply the validated instrument to a series of

o prepare the instrument, the usual steps have been

followed in this type of process: theoretical review

of the subject, preparation of a first design,

validation by a group of experts, and final creation of the

tool (Álvarez-García et al., 2018; Molina Puche et al.,

2016).

To recognize the way in which picturebook promote civic

education, it is first necessary to define the basic concepts

examination of the curriculum for the forenamed

educational stage. The competency profile in the area of

Social Sciences was taken into account, that is, those

standards directly linked to Social and Civic Competences.

Similarly, the European documentation on education for

democratic citizenship was consulted: the Eurydice reports

(European Commission, 2017) and the studies by Hoskins

(2006) and Volman & Ten Dam (2015).

New readings and consultations were necessary to restrict

the number of concepts and gain in operability. This led to

adopted by those who create the picturebook to provoke

questioning in their reading public are conceived as

mechanisms. These are not isolated phenomena, but

patterns that are repeated for the same purpose in different

works.

The aforementioned process of searching for civic

parallel with constant feedback. Likewise, an example was

taken from existing models, such as that of Silva-Díaz

The expert judges received the first design and an

evaluation guide to evaluate it. This guide, including the

Likert scale used, is based on that of Molina Puche, Felices

experts, only three of them completed the validation guide.

Here, therefore, the statistical data relating to these three

valuations are reflected. The judges gave the instrument a

total average score of 3.61 out of 4. Table 1 shows results

per judge.

scale.

share one of 3.33.

promotes it or not (explicitly, subtly, etc.). In addition, the

mechanisms.

After analyzing the agreement between judges (using

rejected, and nothing opposes accepting H1, which means

that there is agreement between judges (W = .943, Chi2 =

14.143, gl = 3, p <.05).

For dimension Part III. Achievement of the research

judges (W = .571, Chi2 = 6.857, gl = 3, p> .05).

instrument that have already been indicated are introduced.

From all received validations, that of Judge 4 became

especially relevant, since instead of filling in the

assessment scale, she sent a redesign of the instrument

proposed for each type. Faced with the imposition of a

organization distinguishes those that are common to all

types of conflict, and those that are specific to diversity. In

the first of the commons, “solutions to the conflictive

(questioned or unquestioned) and “democratic solution”;

and “evidence of conflict”, which can be “explicit” or

instead, to the “production of questions”, which may be due

to “elided information” (narrative gaps or open ending) or

to the “breaking of expectations”.

fulfilled in the text, the image, or both, of the illustrated

picturebook submitted for analysis must be marked.

However, some variations were also introduced to the

This simplified version was subjected to a second

evaluation test with a population like the final recipient, 67

picturebook with the model (Ruiz-Guerrero & Molina

Puche, 2018). Using a Likert scale, where 1 was in

complete disagreement and 5 in complete agreement, they

then assessed the ease of application of the instrument, with

a resulting mean of 3.85. In this case, a five-grade scale was

chosen following the recommendations of Ruiz-Bueno

(2009), which suggests “always including a central,