Abstract

BARRON, Elsa Viviana. Beliefs about the meaning of life in Argentine high school. Soc. relig. [online]. 2020, vol.30, n.54, pp.97-120. ISSN 0326-9795.

This article analyzes the teaching about the meaning of life in Argentine secondary schools, looking for the construction of arguments with scientific and religious aspects, their interrelations and the ideal of future that is shown to the youth in the last decade of the 20th century. A content analysis is made of a corpus of school texts from the main national publishers in the area of ethical and citizen training and their analysis is presented around three thematic areas: the religious in life trajectories, the relationship proposed between the subject and his/her community and the place assigned to the work. Evidence is found of argumentative intersections between religion and science to strengthen the ideas that are sought to be transmitted, which are changing as the years go by. It can be seen, in the early 1990s, that the meaning of life is associated with the consolidation of democracy. Later on, there is a turn towards an approach that aims at understanding the subject as a worker-consumer. The rhetorical resources used are nourished by beliefs and religious elements. Some features of the context are taken up again, showing the profound contradictions of the ideal of the future presented to young people in an era marked by the growth of inequality and social exclusion.

Keywords : Beliefs; Sense of life; Youth; Secondary school.