The school parade as a text: the management of diversity on national commemorations in Greece

ABSTRACT

The paper approaches school parades on national commemorations in Greece as a ‘text’ for storing and transmitting cultural meanings and value hierarchies. The study is based on policy documents and participant observation. The detailed Ministry instructions on how schools should select students for the parade may be viewed as instructions on how to manage dimensions of diversity. Two such dimensions are tallness and achievement, established by law as selection criteria. The latter could point to both intellectual abilities and effort. However, because of the dominance of effort in Greek educational rhetoric, achievement comes to be perceived mainly as an indicator of moral qualities, e.g. hard work. The selected students are distributed along the body of the parade according to ‘syntactic’ rules, i.e. mainly ‘firstness’. Skilful management of bodily and moral ‘diversity’ makes underlying value hierarchies explicit, thus producing cultural meanings and turning the parade into a text about the nation.

KEYWORDS:

• School parades
• ritual
• management of diversity
• production of meaning
• national commemorations
• Greece

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Luciana Benincasa http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3064-8807

Notes

1 Shortly after that, the parents of seven primary school top achievers appealed to the Council of State against the ministerial decree, which they judged to be anti-constitutional (e.g. CNN Greece 2017).

2 One of the most famous Greek comics artists contributed a sketch in which a news presenter supposedly reports on a Minister’s decision: ‘For the purpose of the parade, students shall continue to line up in order of height, but everybody’s height shall be established by lot’.

3 The ancient ‘Hard work is necessary to achieve goals’ (Gr. Agatha kopis ktonte) has become ‘Cheating is necessary to achieve goals’ (Gr. Agatha copies ktonte, in which the word ‘copies’ is written in Latin characters: ‘Aγαθά copies κτώνται’). The English copies lends itself to this joke also because in Greek copying (antigrafi) is the most widespread term for cheating.

4 Though a neutral term, Gr. parastima, is usually perceived as positive (e.g. ‘impressive’), even more so when it is part of a list of desirable prerequisites, as is the case here. That is why here ‘deportment’ could be better than e.g. ‘carriage’.

5 The term levendia is sometimes used to describe the parading youth (e.g. Trigoni 2017). The levendis is a man with handsome appearance and analogous moral virtues, such as courage, dignity, generosity and honesty (Babiniotis 1998, 1000): ‘Levendia can be translated either as upstandingness, dash, ability to fight, or manfulness’, though the term has also a feminine counterpart, levendissa (Kirtsoglou 2003, 166). Trying to render the concept with as few words as possible and having considered ‘fearlessness and gallantry’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leventis), I finally chose ‘dashingness/ dashing’ as in Papanikolas (1991, 121). It is true that the latter is limited to the person’s outward appearance with no mention of moral virtues. On the other hand, the term levendia is meant here to paraphrase ‘flawless appearance’; therefore, an emphasis on outward aspect is justified.

6 Mined (1987) and (1989) do not mention students with special needs.

7

Students with foreign citizenship and foreign origin cannot be appointed flag-carrie rs and flankers. Students who have foreign citizenship but are of Greek origin can be appointed flag-carriers and flankers. Students who, though having foreign citizenship, are of Greek origin can be appointed flag-carriers and flankers, provided their parents so wish, too. Foreign students who have been put into foster care with Greek families by court order and have attended Greek school for at least two (2) years can be appointed flag-carriers and flankers. (Mined 2000, art. 3)

8 ‘As concerns the appointment of flag-carrier and flankers in primary and secondary schools for national celebrations parades, we inform you that the students with the highest achievement, regardless of national origin and citizenship, can take part in the selection procedure for the roles of flag-carrier/flanker and wreath-layer’. It is specified that decision Γ1/219/16-3-2001 ΥΑ (ΦΕΚ 277/τ.Β`) still applies. We point out that the teaching staff has exclusive responsibility for the above’ (My emphasis: instead of inform the verb should have been remind).

9 In a formal context, paying a tribute to National Resistance against Nazi Germany’s invasion (1940–1944) is not so much a personal choice as an institutional duty since the 1980s, when Resistance was acknowledged by law. Hundred thousands people were then granted a Resistance pension, after just filling in application and bringing along two witnesses (Mitakis 2012).

10 See also Greek ‘kitazo af’ipsilou’ (look down on someone), the Italian proverb ‘height is half-beauty’ and the title ‘Her Highness’ in Greek and Italian, besides English.