Social representations of students of pedagogy about their school trajectories

Abstract

The article analyzes the social representations of pedagogy students about their school trajectories. It is based on Moscovici’s theory of social representations and on sociological studies about life trajectories. Twenty-six pedagogy students were asked to write a text with the title, “My school trajectory” and to answer a questionnaire on their profile. The narratives were submitted to the Alceste software (Analyse Lexicale par Contexte d’un Ensemble de Segments de Texte), which classified the material in five categories, which were rearranged in three themes, due totheir similarity of meanings: Theme 1 – How school was experienced; Theme 2 – Social interactions in the school context; Theme 3 – Entering higher education: challenges and dreams. The results indicate trajectories marked by the idea of triumph, observed at the different phases of their school trajectory. There is a social construction that relates educational success to the school’s pedagogical and structural conditions, to the families’ social-economical and cultural situation and to the access to higher education as a coming true of a dream of social ascent.

Keywords: social representations, school trajectory, pedagogy, Alceste software.