The modern school and its rituals: is there a place for the memory of Argentinian’s recent past?

This article examines what has happened in Argentinian schools with the implementation of school celebrations regarding the last dictatorship, and their role in the process of creating a memory for the youngsters. Based on field research material collected from two public high schools in the city of Buenos Aires, the present paper demonstrated that a significant part of the celebrations regarding the dictatorship reproduce old premises of the school culture, which limits the creative transmission of memory, but still leaves marks on the newer generations. The article begins with a theoretical review based on the ideas of F. Dubet and on previous works about school celebrations and Argentine’s educational history. In the sequence, it presents an analysis of a particular celebration and interviews with teachers and students. Finally, it highlights the dilemmas that create links between memory transmission and the questioning of school practices in the contemporary world