Young people: Social identity and memory building

Abstract

If we view young people as a social and cultural construction, changes ocurred among contemporary society affect their ordinary life. The young, as social generational collective are far more exposed to lose memory of the presente. Time and space re-meaning seem not to allow memory building. Now, which is the role of domeneering institutions among this construction? Referred to key situations of the Argentinian recent history, do young people show interest in connecting with that memory? Among their discourses, which idea is more relevant: idealism or knowledge? Among the objectives of the research project called Urban juvenile cultures carried out at the National University of San Luis, researchers want to know the ways that young people use to build subjectivity and social identity. With this purpose during early year 2006, they worked with university students to whom was requested to write down their opinions, knowledge and attitudes towards the years of dictatorship in Argentina, as well as to write down their ideas over the representation of young people of that time and their differences and resemblances with the present generation.