Based upon research concerning school difficulties of the middle school pupils in France, Belgium dans England, this study shows that the body represents an institutional indication for school experience and maladjustment. Research into the causes of the students’ different school experiences has been extensive. However the available explanations given by students to their success or failure at school have not been analysed. Thus 90 students (15 -16 years old) were asked to draw and speak the landmark events which were likely to account for their school experience. Are the gender differences in emotion obvious in school history ? How do pupils elaborate their school representations ? How do they interpret their school experience ? I tried to establish a relevant methodology : the drawing and interview on school. These graphics productions are ways of expressing emotions. They can be the self-preservation strategies, but these indirect forms of expression are denied by school. Firstly, the objective of our study was to identify different types of body conceptualizations expressed in school practise. Secondly, our objective was to organize these conceptualizations into categories of conceptual metaphors based on a model inspired by the research of Lakoff and Johnson (Lakoff G & Johnson M, 1980). I examine the school organization and how metaphors that conceptualize schools as living things offer more appropriate insights into the education of students. The communication examines five metaphors of schools, including school as war, school as factory, school as "dumb", school as prison and school as computer. The way in which the inherent logic of a metaphor enables and inhibits perceptions is discussed. Being pupil within the school context might be difficult for some pupils who have difficulties to reconcile their desires, their aspirations and their parental project on the one hand with the obligations of school on the other end. Analysis of a school's experience helps to describe, understand and better manage this period of transformation. The conflicts, mainly provoked by the system in which the pupils live, may have repercussions on all the educative dimensions : the affective, cognitive ans social dimension. These representations played a key role in their school history. Finally, research shows the interest of the subjective experience of students for a renewed understanding of the phenomena of pupils deviances or a risk of subsequent disorders at school. Keywords : school experience, emotional life, conceptual metaphors of the school, representation of the body.

This research explores what 90 students in France, Belgium and England, represented in drawings of their school life, how they developed them and the significance of the drawing with the analysis of shorts students' interviews on the graphics productions (Pourtois J-P & Desmet H, 1996).

Being pupil within the school context might be difficult for some pupils who have difficulties to reconcile their desires, their aspirations and their parental project on the one hand with the obligations of school on the other end. The conflicts, mainly provoked by the system in which the pupils live, may have repercussions on all the educative dimensions : the affective, cognitive ans social dimension. These representations played a key role in their school history. Finally, research shows the interest of the subjective experience of students for a renewed understanding of the phenomena of pupils deviances or a risk of subsequent disorders at school.