Abstract
The Museum of Education (University of Padova) has been engaged for several years in collecting and preserving oral, material and written sources on the history of the Italian school. As for the oral testimonies, the Museum collects a total of about 450 interviews, available in digital audio and/or video format. In the activity of obtaining oral testimonies were also involved students, so this method of historical research has also become an experience of university teaching. Students, after being trained in this activity, were asked to interview three individuals each one. The questions of the grid want to investigate both aspects of everyday school life, and the cultural and social context in which lived the people interviewed. By narrating himself and his own story, the subject also narrates more general History; he refers to a context, a culture and shared values. It is then up to the researcher to reconstruct the political and ideological scenario, to “read” the framework of social structures and cultural references in the stories of the subject. The present work aims to describe and critically reflect on the experience carried out and on methodological issues.
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Notes
- 1.
Professor Patrizia Zamperlin was the lecturer, while I was the “disciplinary expert”.
- 2.
I would like to thank Antonella Ancona for recommending to me the main international studies that investigated the effects of reminiscence on the memory of the elderly.
- 3.
In the first year, 40 students participated in the activity; 49 during the second year and 50 during the third.
- 4.
For more information about the Museum of Education at the University of Padova, please go to the website: http://www.fisppa.unipd.it/servizi/museo-educazione (Retrieved December 30, 2015).
- 5.
During the academic year 2011–12, 46 students participated in the activity; 44 in 2012–13 and 37 in 2013–14.
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Targhetta, F. (2017). Methodological, Historiographical and Educational Issues in Collecting Oral Testimonies. In: Yanes-Cabrera, C., Meda, J., Viñao, A. (eds) School Memories. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44063-7_11
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