Os sentidos e os significados da escola para o adolescente

Abstract

This research is aiming to investigate the meaning of school and the feeling about school for teenagers. The research was made with teenagers, in the age group of 14 years old, studying in traditional private schools from high middle class neighbourhood on the West zone of the Sao Paulo city. Leaming about the way the teenagers reeI about the school is also a way of leaming about the way they understand the reality around them and how they deal with it. The research took place in two stages: from September to October 2003 and from April to June 2004 where the teenagers were attending the equivalent of the Iast year of senior school and the equivalent of the first year of sixth form college respectively. ln order to achieve the research's main objective, open interview was used to make it easier for the participants to express themselves. The theory and methodology was based on Liev Semiónovitch Vigotski, and the relationship between the researcher and participants based on the Gonzalez Rey' s qualitative analysis. The result of the research shows that the teenagers share similar social meanings about the school and personal distinct feelings. The school meant something necessary for life in the future, a preparation for a social association which provides not only integration in society but also a moral formation; a place that allows the acquisition of a profession and, later, the conquer of a well remunerated work. Friendship was considered relevant in the process of creating the feeling and meaning about the school, as well as the way the teenagers understood the experience of their own adolescence. The research shows some of the aspects that intermediates the way each person accept the school in one specific moment of their lives