Investigating college students’ school memories

Abstract This work aims to investigate the school memories of university students, through the use of autobiographical narratives, trying to understand the meaning they attribute to the school space. Although the school is considered as a space for the transmission of scientific and historically produced knowledge, it is important to reflect that it is a place where the subject is constituted in social, physical, emotional and cultural terms. Through the content analysis of the autobiographical narratives presented by 105 university students, it was possible to identify 11 categories of memories: positive, conflictive, playful, pedagogic, nostalgic, hierarchical, family participation, food, transgressive group, family rupture and prospective. The results indicate that relational and playful aspects were more remembered than pedagogical ones. It is argued that the collection of school memories is an interesting strategy to increase the knowledge about the practices performed in the school space and the meaning attributed to the school.