SCHOOL EXPERIENCES AND MEANING-MAKING AMONG YOUTH FROM BENTO RODRIGUES AFTER THE FUNDÃO DAM COLLAPSE (BRAZIL)

The Fundão Dam Collapse (FDC), which occurred in 2015 in the municipality of Mariana (Minas Gerais, Brazil), produced social and territorial transformations in the affected communities. Among its impacts were the destruction of schools, the displacement of students, and the reorganization of educational trajectories. In Bento Rodrigues, a district completely destroyed by the disaster, the school became part of the community’s process of deterritorialization, operating in temporary spaces before the construction of the collective resettlement. This paper examines how young people from Bento Rodrigues interpret their school experiences in the aftermath of this territorial rupture. This study is part of an ongoing doctoral research project in the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Adopting a qualitative approach, the research uses narrative interviews as the data collection method. The analysis is based on three interviews conducted in 2025 with 18-year-old youths who experienced the dam collapse during their childhood. The results suggest a persistent tension between material reconstruction and symbolic belonging. Although the new school is recognized for its improved infrastructure, the school in the former Bento Rodrigues remains a central affective and community reference in the youths’ memories. The narratives reveal that young people construct meanings about schooling by articulating memory, territory, and lived experience, showing that educational processes extend beyond formal institutions and are embedded in the territorial and social transformations that characterize the post-collapse context.