In the palimpsest of the classroom: the legitimation of disputed literary works at school

Abstract

This article presents some results of research seeking to understand the disputes for the legitimate reading of literary works in daily school life. Based on it, it was understood that reading gains meanings in the fabric of daily life as the actions of teachers and students reveal socially structured points of view on the issue, frequently questioning the school imperatives. To this end, in dialogue with authors such as Pierre Bourdieu and Roger Chartier, class observations were carried out in three Portuguese-speaking high school classes, two of which in the regular modality and one in Young Adults Education (EJA), whose records originated the Field Diaries. Thus, the investigation uses the resources of school ethnography. Semi-structured interviews with two teachers and eight students, teenagers and adults, also make up the research material. Thus, the objective was to understand the tensions related to legitimate culture within a level of education that has been going through various processes of expansion and questioning of its formative meanings. The analysis of sources allows us to see reading as an element that supports and structures a relevant dimension of school life, while its meanings are constructed according to the logic of everyday interactions that help in the classification and identification of legitimate practices. It was possible to describe classrooms in the image of the palimpsest, in which the reading references of students and teachers occupy a marginal space but put pressure on the activities and literary dispositions offered to students.