School images. Experiences of discrimination and resilience

Abstract

This paper presents partial results of an investigation that is currently carried out with young people from the region Altos de Chiapas, in southern Mexico, who relate experiences of discrimination suffered at various stages of their lives. From a biographical-narrative perspective, the authors recover the voices of three young people who reconstruct images of their past to rethink their current life. The images reconstructed as these young people recall their school trajectories make it possible to understand what it means to live in a region marked by gender violence, religious intolerance, homophobia, racism, and discrimination against migrants, as well as by the scarce possibilities of work and economic precariousness in which the majority of its inhabitants remain. In this adverse context, the schools through which these young people went through are presented as spaces for reconstruction and discovery of new options that lead to the transformation of themselves, and that allow them to make decisions that lead them to incorporate themselves into jobs that help them provide support for others. These images, reconstructed by the subjects about themselves during the transit through the classrooms, from empathic and affective relationships, lead them to assume an attitude of resilience and to rethink their own actions as adults, as well as the way in which they relate to others.