Confluences and paradoxes between tradition and modernity in school education: an analysis on the basis of Walter Benjamin’s ideas

Abstract

Our paper aims at apprehending and understanding male and female pupils’ oral narratives observed in classrooms of a public school – which offers ordinary Elementary School and Adult High School – located in São Paulo state’s countryside. For this purpose, we used Walter Benjamin’s ideas as a theoretical frame of reference, correlated with a methodology of qualitative nature. For that reason, we employed the concepts of Erfahrung – which refers to the human experience formed by tradition in artisan societies and passed on through oral narratives associated with the pre-capitalist production mode, and Erlebnis, which is the human experience shaped by the Cultural Industry and the capitalist production mode. On the basis of that theoretical premise, we observed classes of Portuguese and History, which was a methodological strategy that allowed us to get examples of oral expressions made up of elements that can help us to understand how people’s experiences are formed in our days.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, oral narratives, experience.