"Leave them kids alone": a study of school representations through Pink Floyd's The Wall

Abstract

The songs "The Happiest Days of our Lives" and "Another Brick in the Wall pt. II", along with their music videos, are notable critiques of Western schooling, part of the multimedia work "The Wall" by the English band Pink Floyd. They depict the schooling experience of the creators, especially Roger Waters, known for his political activism and opposition to the global far right. The support of part of Waters' audience for then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro during his 2018 show in São Paulo caused surprise in the press and among researchers. Our hypothesis is that this phenomenon can also be explained by the convergence in the content of the aforementioned songs and the current rhetoric of the Brazilian right. Our goal is to investigate representations of school and education in "The Wall", relating them to the educational debate in England at the time. We seek to understand the possible appropriation of these representations by contemporary Brazilian right-wing. This article fits within the field of the History of Education, with theoretical guidance based on Roger Chartier's notions of practices and representations in Cultural History. We conclude that the representations in "The Wall" reflect debates about English school models of the 1970s and 1980s, but ultimately critique universal aspects of schooling, and their appropriation by the right may serve the defense of homeschooling and the attack on contrary political manifestations in schools.