Truth, value and school culture: elements to dialogue with Nietzsche

Abstract

Considering that nowadays the school institution has been showing gradual loss of characterization concerning its legitimacy and social function, we propose, under the perspective of school culture, an analysis of truth and value categories in the context of contemporary educational institutions. Thus, we use the propositions of Nietzsche, articulating his thoughts to authors from different areas of knowledge in order to discuss their ideas with issues of the social, political and cultural universe. The study of the processes of construction – and (de)construction – of the order allows the understanding of how it is built and operated nowadays the attribution of meanings and values to institutions, especially the school, which is loaded of symbolic representations from which derive a number of devices that are inter-related with society. When thinking about the school in the “crisis of modernity”, or considering truth as a value, we understand it as a supplier of practices and knowledge that, despite being highly questioned, remain and insist on subsidizing our social and cultural repertoire. To develop this research, we use as operative categories the notions of representation, legitimacy and production of meaning.