Youths, industry, and education: the genesis of the effect promo

Abstract

This article recovers investigative processes with youth in the Province of San Luis, Argentina, within the framework of the Final Project of the Licenciatura en Ciencias de la Educación. We seek to share our constructions in relation to understanding the phenomenon of secondary level promotions in the City of San Luis. We analyze how the Cultural Industry has absorbed different school and extracurricular practices of final year high school students to become a symbol of circulation and massive consume. In this paper we briefly describe the activities and cultural products created by the secondary level promotions of three schools of different formats and locations in the City of San Luis. We notice processes and links in relation to the notion of cultural resources, the principle of conformity and shared interests.

To achieve these objectives, we carried out a qualitative approach from an interpretative approach guided by a flexible design. The study of reality was through group interviews, in-depth interviews and documentary sources, from an analysis based on emerging categories. We conclude in the construction of a macro category called: Promo Effect, integrated in turn by two axes: Promo Effect Outside School and Promo Effect Inside School, with their respective subcategories. Their construction preserved the textual nature of the subjects who participated in the research.

We came to understand the Promo Effect as a small-scale industry that homogenizes, serializes and standardizes both the production and consumption of products and activities of hundreds of students in the City of San Luis. In the stories of some secondary level promotions we visualize activities and products that have been absorbed by the Cultural Industry, to become a symbol of circulation and/or mass consumption.