Memory, narrative and the discursive dimension of school experience

Abstract

This research proposal aims to articulate memory, narrative, and issues on education and development, based on principles of Cultural-Historical perspective and Discursive approaches. In our studies, we assume discourse and education as fundamental social practices for the constitution of human psychic dimension, taking into consideration in several contexts the conditions of such practices, trying to apprehend modes of participation of subjects in the collective construction of knowledge. Field work is based on Ethnographic and Ethno-sociologic approaches, and theoretical/methodological principles proposed by Vigotski. We intend to focus specifically on memories, narratives, histories and experiences of subjects that share a school setting (teachers, pupils, administrative and pedagogical staff, parents, other people from the community), in a reflection about the process of narrative production and its dialogical dimension, about social practices at the school setting, trying to apprehend in the accounts the elements that constitute the collective and discursive remembering. In the process of analysis, with the contribution of the French School of Discourse Analysis, modes of participation of subjects in the school setting and how the institution participates in the constitution of the subjects, in the collective and conflicting production of memory and history. The research is being developed in a public school of São Paulo, Brazil, articulated to an intervention, in an attempt to contribute to the dialogue between subjects direct or indirectly involved with this institution, to re-think on practices, relationships and the role of the school within the community. (AU)