The school culture of school gardens in Sicily. Textual and discourse analysis on the learning objectives

Abstract

How are school gardens conceived and narrated inside a regional school culture? what value does the teaching community assign to them? what purposes does such a community address activities like this for? what results are expected? The article starts from the data collected through a regional mapping ofeducational projects carried in Sicily concerning the cultivation of soil. A good part of this database - the 49 surveyed schools - constitutes the textual sub-corpus analyzed in this contribution. We will use some quantitative techniques developed in the context of textual analysis, a methodology for semiosis of the text widely practiced not only in linguistic field, but also in the cultural studies. By analyzing the most recurrent morphemes, their contexts of use and their network of co-occurrences, we will propose a (necessarily personal)interpretation of the meanings attributable to some key concepts and to their reciprocal most frequently featured relationships.