This paper presents a set of preliminary conclusions from an ongoing project about secondary students’ experiences of the local, global and national in Argentine schools. A vast literature in the social sciences describes the national as disappearing as a collective of belonging and identification. However, this project aims to explore the ways in which the national collective identity is articulated with the local and the global, being the former reshaped and transformed in Argentine education.

Taking up these questions, this paper presents a study based on two schools located in two bounded localities: a gated condominium and a ‘villa’ (or shantytown). The first one is situated on the outskirts of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires and the second within it. Although both have similarities, since their populations construct their local identities in opposition to their representations of the city of Buenos Aires, they also have differences in terms of social class: the gated condominium is higher/middle class, whereas the ‘villa’ is characterized as a deprived neighbourhood. The settings were chosen to observe how different local frontiers work in the construction of identities, and their relations to secondary school students’ national and global identities. National identity will be analyzed in relation to whom are considered to be ‘Argentine’ and what the practices and symbols that characterize it are. Global identity will be analyzed considering the students’ awareness and involvement in global issues, as well as their access and participation in global practices such as virtual social networks and travelling. The aim of the paper is to identify the experiences of the local, national and global that intervene in the construction of students’ collective identities in these settings.

The focus will not only will be on the discursive construction of identity, but also on the school experiences in which these processes take place. So, the school will be considered in its particular production of discourses and relationships, for which the voices of head teachers and teachers will be taken into account.

In order to approach this topic, an understanding of identity and experience will be developed. Drawing on Stuart Halls’ work, identity will be considered in its discursive dimension and also taking into account the processes that intervene in its embodiment, both structural and subjective. Identity is considered to be produced through the opposition against an ‘other’. In structural terms, these oppositions will be explored in depth given the position in which these schools are placed, that is, at the limits between their neighbourhoods and the ‘rest of the city of Buenos Aires’.

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