THE SCHOOL: A PLACE OF MEANING AND COMMITMENT/La escuela: lugar de significado y compromiso

Current social phenomena related to children and young people have led to a growing scepticism of the capacity of schools to construct common meanings and to prepare students to participate in a democratic society. The aim of this article is to show how cultural transmission within schools is the basis of the humanisation process by which students are able to construct their own personal identity on solid foundations and to find meaning within their own lives through commitment to the social, cultural, political and economic realities of which they are part. We will present three pressures to which schools are currently subjected, driving them to renounce their true mission and provide an education emptied of cultural references with all the pernicious effects this entails. Secondly, we will explain how schools can, through cultural transmission, create meaning and enable students to find meaning within their own lives and engage with others within a common space of understanding. Finally, the paper will show how schools foment three dimensions (narration, intelligibility, and responsibility) necessary to live in a democratic society. To conclude, we will stress the fundamental importance of teleological reflection as a guide for educational action, resisting an agenda that undermines the true purpose of education: to instil the kind of freedom that enables individuals to transcend mere appetite and engage in a genuine encounter with others.