Abstract
This article introduces situated coding, a hybrid methodological practice that integrates standardized categorization with contextualized interpretation. The study draws on qualitative and mixed methods to explore the use of metaphors as a lens for investigating students’ lived experiences of schooling. Following a critical review of the literature, findings are presented from a school guidance project involving 325 upper secondary school students in Italy. Metaphors were elicited through an open-ended question embedded in standardized questionnaires and subsequently revisited in the workshops with students. Quantitative analysis enabled the identification of recurrent patterns and group differences, while situated, multimodal interpretation revealed otherwise invisible dimensions, including temporal orientation, experiential focus, and the significance of non-responses. Situated coding is proposed as a practice that goes beyond statistical measurability to recover the semantic richness and reflexive depth of qualitative interpretation. Metaphors are understood not merely as empirical data but as conceptual and relational devices that foster sensemaking, critical reflection, and the co-construction of meaning in educational research contexts.
1. Introduction
Metaphors extend meaning beyond the confines of words, enriching mental images, symbols, and indirect narratives. Literature has long highlighted the potential of metaphorical devices to reveal latent meanings and experiences often resistant to expression through standardized language alone (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Ricoeur, 1975). These are latent images that not only structure individual thought but also possess a powerful capacity to shape institutions themselves (Morgan, 1980, 1986). They also expand understanding through deviations, proliferations, and openings (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991). More than mere linguistic data, metaphors are privileged access points for grasping tensions, ambivalences, and meanings that are difficult to verbalize (Nardon & Hari, 2021; Weick, 1995). They are dynamic discursive phenomena that emerge in dialogue and possess the capacity to transform communicative experience (Cameron, 2003). Furthermore, they are discursive devices rooted in the social, cultural, and identity conditions from which they arise (Boréus & Bergström, 2017; Charteris-Black, 2017; Jensen, 2006).
The heuristic value of these tools in social research (Schmitt, 2005) is consistent with the theoretical foundations of visual methods such as photo-elicitation and Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997). While those methods use physical images, metaphorical elicitation is based on mental images or “symbolic snapshots”. The epistemological function, however, remains the same: it rests on the assumption that images – whether mental or physical – can circumvent the limitations of literal language, thereby facilitating access to latent meanings and affective dimensions. In both traditions, meaning is not “found” but “created” through a reflective process. In this process, two key components are explicitly recognized as integral parts og the data, along with the social deteminants that shape them. The first is the researcher's social experience: the knowledge the sociologist inherently possesses as a social subject, which has every right to enter scientific discourse when controlled through comparison with observable data (Bourdieu, 1979, methodological appendix to La Distinction). The second is (“participant reflexivity” (Cassell et al., 2020), the reflexive thinking stimulated in participants by their involvement in the research process, accessible through emotional and dialogic engagement. It is precisely through this dual reflexivity that metaphors find their full methodological realization as relational devices for sensemaking (Weick, 1995), bridging lived experiences and researcher comprehension. While the present article formalizes the steps of the co-construction process, a deeper epistemological exploration of the researcher’s involvement can be found in Fornari (2025). In that work, the ethical tension inherent in interpreting others’ lives is explicitly acknowledged. The resulting analysis is therefore presented not as an objective account but as a synthetic recomposition – according the hermeneutic tradition (Gadamer, 1960) – one possible reading among many, shaped through dialogue, reflexivity, and situated engagement. While this entails the risk of occasionally speaking both with and for participants (Sennett, 2006), such arbitrariness is treated not as a flaw to be eliminated, but as an epistemic space through which the complexity of social reality can be rendered visible.
It is from these premises that this article derives its methodology, which aims to reflect on the use of metaphors. More specifically, the article analyzes the tension between the need to preserve the proliferation of meanings and the pursuit of interpretative generalizability. The approach presented here does not constitute an independent methodological framework, but rather a formalized response to the challenge of replicability, achieved through the explicit systematization of the research practices utilized in the aforementioned study. This earlier stage focused on the crisis of meaning in the school experience within the Italian educational system; an area where metaphors have proven particularly useful for fostering dialogue with students and overcoming resistance to communicating about their experiences. Beyond their dialogic function, metaphors also serve as a “diagnostic lens” onto the school’s organizational culture, understood as a complex social and symbolic system (Morgan, 1986). The use of metaphors as a methodological instrument is not new, even within the field of education. It is widely recognized that they play a fundamental role as a tool of thought, conveying perspectives, emotions, and ideological frameworks that influence both teaching practices and learning processes (Botha, 2009). They facilitate the understanding of students’ and teachers’ conceptualizations and practical applications of learning and teaching (Bas & Kıvılcım, 2020; Larsson et al., 2021; Saban, 2006; Sfard, 1998), and enable the discernment of affective and identity dimensions that might otherwise remain imperceptible (Pishghadam et al., 2011; Shaw & Andrei, 2020).
From a methodological perspective, metaphors have been employed in both quantitative and qualitative research traditions. Quantitative studies use systematic collection to identify widespread representations and group differences, while qualitative approaches emphasize dialogic meaning. Yet scholars across both traditions stress that findings must be interpreted within narrative and relational contexts. As Jensen (2006) asserts, metaphor functions as a conduit between participants’ experiences and researcher comprehension – meaning is inextricably linked to dialogue and context. When treated as aggregated quantitative units, metaphors enable broad statistical analysis, but this approach risks losing value when detached from contextualized reading grounded in action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2005) and ethnography (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019). The challenge, then, is not to choose between quantification and contextualization, but to understand how interpretation itself is shaped by methodological choices. This shifts the focus to a deeper question: how do we interpret metaphors in ways that honor both their patterned recurrence and their situated richness?
The duality between the act of enumeration and the process of interpretation raises the question of the extent to which metaphors can be reduced to categories and counts without losing their evocative and contextualized power. Conversely, this dilemma calls into question the subjective nature of both metaphor producers and analysts, challenging the credibility of the analytical process. Several protocols have been proposed to address this variability, using triangulation, metaphor verification with participants, and reflexive coding practices (Armstrong et al., 2011; Declercq & van Poppel, 2023; Larsen et al., 2025). Common to these approaches is the effort to ensure that interpretations reflect participants’ experiences rather than being “imported” by the researcher. Within the tension between these two poles, the perspective adopted in this study aligns closely with the work of Jensen (2006), who emphasizes how metaphors emerge from social and educational contexts and function as situational tools for connecting subjective experiences and analytical interpretations. This understanding resonates with the tradition of research on school experience as a socially constructed arena (Dubet & Martucelli, 1996), where students navigate relationships with teachers, peers, and institutional structures. Following this tradition, we understand school experience as defined by the interplay of institutional logics, social relations, and individual meaning-making; a perspective that deeply informed the researcher’s interpretation of the oral and relational dimensions emerging from classroom activities. The empirical material, gathered using a quantitative tool but within an observational context similar to action research, offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on this tension.
Given the configuration of metaphor as an evoked and imagined image articulated through language – generative, situated, and irreducible – the key question becomes how such metaphors are used and analyzed. Based on a critical review of the use of metaphors in quantitative and qualitative research, this study proposes an alternative approach. Rather than being considered as autonomous units to be interpreted in isolation, metaphors are treated as situated stimuli whose meaning emerges through iterative engagement with participants’ narratives, classroom interactions, and the researcher’s reflexive positioning. This approach informs the proposed practice of situating the coding process, which treats coding not as a neutral technical phase, but as an interpretive practice embedded in context, dialogue, and observation throughout the different phases of data generation and analysis. The central argument of this article is that, although metaphor can be quantified and classified, it transcends any attempt at reduction. Indeed, it is precisely in this excess that its cognitive power lies – its generative potential as a “line of flight” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991) – a multiplication of perspectives, and a facilitator in the construction of the actors’ symbolic world.
2. Literature Review
Reflection on metaphors in education has developed along two main, and often intersecting, lines of inquiry: one that treats them as standardisable data, useful for describing and comparing collective representations, and another that considers their power as a situated discursive event, whose meaning is constructed in dialogue and context. The aim of this review is to analyze how studies have engaged both approaches, highlighting their respective strengths, limitations and potential methodological gaps.
2.1. Quantitative Approaches
Quantitative studies on the use of metaphors in education range from highly standardized procedures to more hybrid solutions, in which numerical coding does not preclude consideration of context. At one end of the spectrum lies research that treats metaphors as structured measurable items, with the aim of constructing psychometric instruments. In such cases, metaphorical images are transformed into statements that can be evaluated on a Likert scale and subjected to statistical analysis (including tests of internal consistency, factor analysis and temporal stability). Research has demonstrated the efficacy of tools such as the Democracy Metaphors Questionnaire (DMQ) and checklists derived from metaphor repertoires in obtaining reproducible indicators and verifying the conceptual consistency of representations over time (Todor, 2017; Wegner et al., 2021). At an intermediate level, studies involve the collection of predefined metaphor lists and subsequently measure the frequency with which participants select them. For instance, a study conducted with over 400 school stakeholders proposed 17 images of school organization and used frequency thresholds to identify the most central representations (Nasirci & Sadik, 2018). In this instance, metaphor functions as a diagnostic instrument at the organizational level, with the capacity to discern symbolic convergences within a given population. A further approach, less constrained but still grounded in quantitative criteria, involves the use of open-ended questionnaires. Responses are coded into domains (e.g. journey, building, conduit) and then counted to describe the distribution of images and enable comparisons between groups (Bas & Kıvılcım, 2020; Whang, 2021; Aksu et al., 2025). In this case, the data remain closer to participants’ expressions, even after being classified into standardized categories. Finally, some studies experiment with mixed designs, in which quantification serves as the first step identifying the most frequent or representative images, before these are subjected to in-depth qualitative analysis (Botha, 2009; Mahlios et al., 2010). This model enhances the descriptive power of statistics without sacrificing interpretative depth, representing an attempt to balance generalization and contextualization.
Concurrently, the extant literature has identified certain methodological limitations inherent in these approaches. The first concerns transparency in the identification of metaphors. It is essential to establish clear parameters for what counts as a metaphorical expression, to delineate the protocol to be followed, and to define validation criteria (Boréus & Bergström, 2017). Systematic procedures, such as the Pragglejaz method or consensus coding, where multiple researchers compare their coding to increase reliability have been developed to address this issue. A second limitation pertains to the stability of metaphorical surfaces: images may evolve over time while retaining the same conceptual core (Wegner et al., 2021). Finally, it is crucial to emphasize the need for strong cultural sensitivity, as metaphors are not universally valid and their meaning varies according to linguistic and social contexts.
2.2. Qualitative Approaches
In qualitative analysis, the focus is on situated and contextualized meaning, dialogue, participants’ experience, and interpretative negotiation. Redden (2017) distinguishes several main methods for conducting qualitative metaphor analysis, including rhetorical analysis, elicitation, the idiographic approach and the use of drawings. In terms of thematic focus within education, Zheng and Song (2010) highlight the use of metaphors to explore dynamics involving interactions between students and institutions, as well as teachers’ and students’ perceptions of learning and teaching. Metaphors can thus be found in texts or speeches that shape public discourse, such as the presentation of an educational reform. Spontaneous metaphors can be collected through an idiographic approach applied to texts or conversations. This method is inherently rich and generative: metaphors are grouped and interpreted in relation to emerging themes and codes, following an open, inductive logic. For instance, Miller and Fredericks (1988) employed metaphors to analyze conceptions of teaching and learning as they emerged from the narratives of teachers and students. In addition to spontaneous collection, metaphors can be “forced” through elicitation, by explicitly asking participants to describe personal experiences using metaphorical language or gathered through visual representations such as drawings. Pishghadam and Pourali (2011) use metaphors as a cognitive tool to uncover the cognitive and affective assumptions of teachers and students, thereby fostering a deeper understanding of learning processes, awareness and reflexivity. Schmitt (2005) extends this line of inquiry by offering a systematic approach to qualitative analysis, in which metaphors are methodically collected and coded according to rigorous protocols. Central to this perspective is the notion of metaphors as situated discursive data, capable of facilitating the reconstruction of the conceptual structures underpinning the thinking of students and teachers. In contrast to methodologies based on spontaneous collection or open coding, the Improved Metaphor Analysis (IMA) approach, developed by Fábián (2013), proposes a more structured system. This qualitative approach aims to enhance reliability and systematicity by mitigating the limitations of subjective interpretation. It achieves this through a structured procedure that involves the decomposition of metaphors and their subsequent categorization.
Qualitative metaphor analysis has been shown to facilitate access to worldviews and to create space for sense making. It can function as a form of shorthand, enabling discourse about shared norms and expectations. It has also been demonstrated to stimulate critical reflection on individual and collective experiences, a particular benefit when working with groups that struggle with verbal expression or have experienced trauma. In such contexts, metaphors can help communicate aspects of the self, situations or taboos that are not fully conscious or that resist articulation in analytical or literal terms (Marshak, 1993; Ridenour, 2020). Nevertheless, the qualitative approach is not without its limitations. Generating original metaphors can be challenging, and the use of clichés is common. To facilitate the process, participants may be provided with lists of predefined metaphors, striking a balance between guidance and creative freedom. Furthermore, the coding and interpretation of data require careful management of the researcher’s subjectivity. Without clear protocols or triangulation strategies, there is a risk of projecting meanings not present in the participants’ contributions, or of detaching metaphors excessively from the natural context in which they emerge. Finally, cultural and linguistic variability can complicate the understanding of metaphorical symbols, underscoring the need for methodological transparency and, where possible, verification with the participants themselves.
2.3. The Situated Coding Approach
It is precisely within the gap between quantitative and qualitative methods that the present study moves. The situated coding approach integrates participatory observation and narrative analysis with quantitative coding within a unified iterative process, using each to interrogate the other. What distinguishes it from established qualitative traditions, such as collaborative metaphor analysis (Shaw et al., 2021), is not the individual practices it employs – dialogue, reflexivity, contextualization – but rather its attempt to systematically integrate these practices with coding procedures traditionally associated with quantitative research.
In quantitative metaphor analysis, coding transforms responses into discrete units for counting and correlation. Yet even the most rigorous coding cannot ignore context: each response is inscribed within a specific experience, relationship, and culture that modulates its meaning. Situated coding departs from “pure” quantitative approaches by giving equal weight to narrative context, the experiential dimension of participants, and the relationship between those who produce and those who analyze the data. It preserves the complexity of emerging meanings without reducing metaphors to numerical labels, enhancing their generative function in dialogue and reflection.
The process unfolds through continuous movement between metaphors and the contexts that give them meaning. It begins with the gathering of evoked mental images through open-ended questions embedded in standardized questionnaires. These raw metaphors are then provisionally clustered into broad, intuitive meta-categories – such as Community, Challenge, or Detention – based on their source domains and implicit evaluative tones. This initial grouping is deliberately tentative, serving more as a point of departure than as a fixed classification. What follows is a recursive dialogue between metaphors, ethnographic observation, and experiential learning with students. In workshop, students are invited to revisit their images through discussions that touch on critical moments, notions of success, visions of the future and work, the transferable skills activated in classroom life, and the quality of their relationships with teachers. These conversations become sites of metaphor checking, where meanings are negotiated and refined in collaboration with students, ensuring that interpretations remain anchored in their lived experience. It is through this iterative, dialogical process that a truly situated interpretation takes shape, one in which a conventional label like ‘prison’ gives way to more textured readings, revealing specific feelings of entrapment, the weight of alienating routine, or a perceived absence of freedom.
3. The Elicitation of Metaphors of School Experience
This study draws on data from a school guidance project carried out in 2024, involving students from various upper secondary school tracks in Italy. While a first analysis of a subset of this dataset (150 students) has been published elsewhere with a focus on the substantive dimensions of students’ school experience (Fornari, 2025), the present analysis expands to a sample of 325 students. The shift to a larger dataset made it possible to consolidate previous analyses and achieve the methodological formalization of the coding process. The participating institutions include: a provincial Classical lyceum, serving a student body with medium-high cultural capital and pronounced symbolic capital; a Language lyceum and an Art lyceum, both located in an urban setting characterized by medium-low employment levels and cultural capital; an IT technical institute in a well-connected populous district of Rome, which attracts students from suburban municipalities with medium cultural and economic capital; and two technical institutes, one specializing in biochemical studies and the other in nautical studies, whose students possess medium-low capital overall, yet exhibit marked disparities in educational investment. The resulting sample was heterogeneous, spanning a broad spectrum of cultural and symbolic capital, from the provincial lyceum with its medium-high background to a technical institute in a working-class Roman neighborhood, where students often contend with family and cultural fragilities. Classroom activities were conducted over two days, with each class participating in six hours of guided work.
Metaphors were elicited through a broader standardized questionnaire administered to students. The instrument covered multiple dimensions of their school experience and personal background: it included questions on educational pathways, family background, future aspirations, cultural consumption, and mental health. Embedded within the section dedicated to the school experience was a single, open-ended (and non-mandatory) question: If you had to describe school with an image, what metaphor would you use? For the purposes of this study, a metaphor was defined as any figurative expression in which students described school by referring to an image, object, or scenario outside the literal domain of schooling, for example, comparing school to a “prison,” a “journey,” or a “greenhouse.”
This question, however, did not appear in a vacuum. Prior to its formulation, students had already participated in six hours of laboratory activities, a sequence of individual reflections, small-group work, and collective debates. This preliminary phase helped create an atmosphere of trust and a certain “familiarity,” often signaled by the shift in address from the formal “Prof” to the more informal, almost affectionate “ah-prof”. It was within this relational climate that students became receptive to responding to the questionnaire with authenticity. This stance was not without tensions. In some classrooms, students tested the boundaries of the relaxed atmosphere; in others, the researcher’s institutional role resurfaced despite efforts to mitigate it. These moments of friction, while not systematically analyzed, remind us that power asymmetries can be mitigated but never fully dissolved.
The questionnaire was administered in class using students’ smartphones, with access provided via a QR code displayed on the digital whiteboard. The physical presence of the researcher–counselor in the classroom served multiple purposes: offering reassurance, monitoring the personal nature of the responses, and motivating students to engage even with non-mandatory questions by emphasizing the unique value of each individual perspective. The researcher was also available in real time to clarify any technical or conceptual ambiguities. Crucially, to preserve the spontaneity and integrity of the students’ imaginative process, no specific indications or examples of possible images were provided beforehand. The only exceptions were rare instances where a student required clarification about the basic notion of “describing with an image”. In such cases, the researcher offered purely formal clarifications, carefully avoiding any suggestion of symbolic content. This ensured that the metaphors remained genuine “snapshots” of each student’s symbolic world, rather than imported or prompted representations.
It is worth noting that the questionnaire was not originally conceived as a research instrument. It was designed as a supplementary tool for orientation purposes, intended to gather information that would help calibrate the activities of the second day. The metaphor question was initially introduced as an evocative and reflexive prompt, meant to stimulate classroom discussion. It was only in the unfolding of the project that its analytical potential became apparent. As metaphors began to recur, resonate, multiply, and weave themselves into stories, spaces, faces, and voices, they reached a critical threshold beyond which they could no longer be treated as marginal or anecdotal. Through this process, the metaphors progressively delineated the very object of the research itself: students’ reflections on the meaning of their school experience. This object was not predefined; it emerged through openness to the field, attentive listening, and a willingness to be affected by the images as they surfaced in situated interaction.
4. Situating the Coding
We began with an established framework based on fundamental dimensions: metaphorical source domain (e.g., natural, technological), evaluative polarity (positive/negative), and the function attributed to school (e.g., knowledge transmission, control, personal growth). From there, we moved continuously between inductive and deductive phases, progressively refining categories through an iterative process that led to the emergence of a fundamental classification criterion directly from the field: temporal orientation (present, past, future). The following subsections illustrate how this situated reading operated across different dimensions of the data.
4.1. Beyond the Standardized Label: From Context to Data
The situated approach allows for a deeper reading of metaphors by operating at two levels: the meta-level of categorical classification and the micro-level of situated interpretation. Qualitative data acts as a lens that brings into focus the complex emotional and psychological landscapes shaping students’ experiences. Metaphors are frequently polysemic, carrying multiple potential meanings. Our interpretation is therefore always grounded in the specific narratives and observational data from our research, as well as in the joint reflection that took place in class with students. This systematic process led to the emergence of twelve primary categories capturing the range of metaphorical expressions, including Care (e.g. Plato’s Academy), Detention (e.g. Prison, Jail), and Challenge (e.g. Mountain to climb). These situated narratives reveal an emotional depth that a purely quantitative approach would overlook.
The metaphorical use of “prison” or “cage,” for instance, was not merely coded as negative; through dialogue, its meaning became more nuanced. In some cases, it signified physical barriers: “Prison because I feel trapped within the walls of the classroom and the windows have bars just like prisons”
In others, it conveyed psychological distress: “A prison because I believe it is a place where one cannot express oneself freely and let one's interests blossom”
In yet others, it pointed to a sense of stifling routine and order: “A cage: instead of stimulating creativity, in some cases it can stifle it with strict rules and standardized programs”
One student offered an especially vivid elaboration: “A prison, locked in a room with companions you did not choose and with whom you are forced to live, you have to ask permission to go out, eat, go to the bathroom, you have to raise your hand to speak, and this creates a huge barrier between the student and the teacher. School causes stress, performance anxiety, self-hatred, and makes us feel wrong”
The category of “Challenge” similarly reveals multiple layers of meaning. Some images focus neutrally on effort and growth: “A gym, because you improve and you may even fall, but you learn to get back up”
Others link effort to future payoff, however distant or uncertain: “A ramp to be built with a lot of effort and hard work. This is because school allows us to build a real ramp for our future, and the more effort we put in, the higher and longer the ramp will be, so the jump will also be greater” “Sacrifice, simply because if there is no sacrifice and dedication at school, you don't get ahead. The sacrifice you make now will pay off later”
In still other cases, the weight of performativity and the absence of a clearly defined goal transform commitment into a struggle that becomes an end in itself: “A ship that takes you from your starting point to your chosen destination. But on the high seas, you have to hold on tight and you can't get off”
Emotional intensity was further substantiated through concrete examples of critical moments discussed in class. These narratives enable a richer interpretation of the metaphors, illuminating the meaninglessness of the present school experience: “A hell where, at the end of it all, there is light. Because even if it's hard and you may not like being there at the end of school, everything you've done will be useful to you in the future” “Exercise bike, because people often tell me that these years are like being on an exercise bike: you “pedal” a lot and you're stationary, but when you get off, you're prepared for anything” “The school environment can be likened to the sea in that it is subject to change. At times, the school atmosphere is calm, which engenders feelings of certainty and joy. Conversely, during stormy periods, the school atmosphere is characterized by anxiety and disappointment”
A student from the Classical Lyceum, confronting a different form of pressure, articulated a profound sense of psychological distress: “It is evident that the aforementioned sentiment does not constitute a state of happiness”
One of the most complex and poignant images came from a student who wrote: “I would represent school today as an anchor that has been thrown into the depths of the abyss while you try to climb back up, because for me school has been a very difficult journey. I suffered a lot before I learned to love it. It was an anchor that hit me in my darkest hour and sent me even deeper into the ocean, but when I finally began to understand it, it pulled me up and finally got me out of the water, helping me to distract myself from my thoughts”
Another student expressed raw desperation: “Sadness. I hate not being free, school takes up too much of my time and every day I'm sad just because of school. I can't take it anymore, I feel tremendous anxiety when I think about school. School deprives me of my freedom. If I failed, I would drop out”
This type of situated reading was carried out for all metaphors, attending not only to the images themselves but to the emotional resonance embedded in the students’ voices and the contexts in which they originated. The emphasis on effort or the experience of prison as stress, for example, was more pronounced in high-performing classes, while prison as routine and boredom emerged more frequently in vocational schools.
4.2. Beyond Missing: Signaling the Need for Reflexivity
We also created distinct categories for “I don’t know” and Missing responses, treating them not as voids but as meaningful data. This decision arose inductively from repeated encounters with students’ refusals and hesitations – moments that resisted dismissal as mere missing data. Only retrospectively did this stance align with qualitative traditions that conceptualize silence as a dense site of meaning rather than an analytic void (e.g., Frank, 1995; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Riessman, 2008). From a quantitative perspective, such responses may correlate with specific student profiles, such as those reporting low school satisfaction. From a qualitative and situated perspective, however, a Missing response signals an explicit refusal to engage, a gesture denoting profound detachment and disillusionment with the school system. Similarly, an “I don’t know” can be read as an implicit metaphor in itself, pointing to a difficulty in translating the school experience into an image, a lack of reflective capacity.
Recognizing that the request for metaphorical imagery is not a neutral instrument, we must consider how cultural backgrounds shape self-reflection. Drawing on Bernstein’s (1971) theory of linguistic codes, the production of a metaphor requires what he called “elaborated code” – a symbolic and abstract use of language – that is not equally accessible to all students. While the sample included students from diverse backgrounds, including those with non-Italian citizenship, this dimension did not manifest as a distinct cultural variable in the metaphorical content itself. Instead, it contributed at least to the density of non-response and “I don’t know” categories. For these students, as for others with lower symbolic capital, silence signals an existential torpor: the lack of an image reflects a difficulty in ‘reading’ an experience that often feels compulsory and opaque. In this sense, the absence of a metaphor can be interpreted as a point where the automaticity of the habitus (Bourdieu, 1994) remains unchallenged, leaving the student in a state of 'disarticulated' lived experience. In classes where non-responses were prevalent, we treated this absence as a fundamental guidance need. In subsequent sessions, we offered students what they could not yet articulate, e.g. drawing on metaphors collected from other classes, we lent them provisional words, images borrowed from peers, in the hope that something might resonate, might help them begin to name their own experience. This practice underscores the critical dimension of research: requesting metaphors may favor those with greater symbolic capital. It is therefore imperative to treat non-responses as full-fledged data, linking them to cultural inequalities and participatory practices. And so, in the space between silence and speech, the researcher’s role becomes that of a quiet companion: one who listens, who offers words when words are lacking, who helps to restore a sense of agency.
4.3. Beyond Frequencies: A Holistic Reading Through the Dialectics of School Experience
Quantitative analysis focuses on frequencies, hierarchies, and group comparisons. In this framework, each metaphor becomes a discrete element to be coded, counted, and correlated. And indeed, metaphors are shaped by institutional stratifications and students’ cultural resources: images of constraint like “prison” prevail among technical students with lower cultural capital, while images of growth like “journey” emerge more frequently among lyceum students. Yet recurrence tells only part of the story. As analysis deepens, even marginal indications become part of a network that invites a holistic reading. Our aim is not to rigidly categorize metaphors, but to show how their distribution reveals the deep tensions animating the school experience. Initial categorization is not a destination but a springboard for reconstructing the dialectics within an otherwise fragmented experience.
We have identified four main tensions animating the school experience: the difficulty of perceiving school as an investment (Present vs Future); the conflict between institutional control and personal well-being (Surveillance vs Self-Care); the pressure of external evaluation on identity (Authenticity vs Judgment); and disillusionment with the system itself (Ritualism vs Rebellion) (for a fuller substantive discussion of these dialectics, see Fornari, 2025). These tensions were not imposed a priori but emerged through a recursive process of reading and re-reading the metaphors alongside field notes and classroom discussions. Read through Morgan’s (1986) lens, these dialectics are not merely individual expressions but diagnostic indicators of how the school as an organization is symbolically constructed by those who inhabit it. The prevalence of ‘prison’ metaphors in vocational tracks, for instance, speaks not only to student distress but to an institutional culture experienced as containment rather than growth. In this sense, the dialectics reveal precisely what Dubet and Martucelli (1996) theorized: that school experience is not a unified totality but a fragmented arena where institutional logics, social relations, and individual meaning-making collide. The metaphors give these collisions a name, a face, a voice.
Metaphors distribute along these tensions.
Present vs Future. Images of Journey and Nature align with this dialectic, projecting toward a goal that often remains uncertain. As seen in the Challenge category discussed above, many metaphors capture the effort and commitment required in the present, yet reveal a profound uncertainty about the future payoff. Other images express the tension even more starkly, revealing the weight of performativity and the absence of a clearly defined goal: “Satisfaction at the summit (after the work, you are satisfied with your diploma or good grades after all the effort)” “A metaphor for school, in my opinion, is ‘work’ because I believe it is our duty as young people” “Life, because it presents you with numerous challenges”
Still others evoke the disorientation of not knowing which direction to take: “A roundabout, because it can take you to many different places, but if you don't know which direction to take, you keep going round in circles” “A sports field: there are many people on it, but not everyone is equally suited to sports” “I don't know, I can only say that I know that one day it will be worth it”
What unites these images is the suspension of belief in the future as a concrete, imaginable horizon. Students continue to invest effort, to “work,” to face challenges but the destination remains opaque. This is the essence of the Present vs Future dialectic: the difficulty of experiencing school as a meaningful investment when the future it promises is too distant, too uncertain, or too abstract to grasp. This interpretation is further supported by students' responses to two additional questions in the questionnaire: Thinking about your future, what dream, project, or desire would you like to realize? and What job do you think you will actually do in the future? While not analyzed systematically here, these responses provided contextual depth that enriched our interpretation of the metaphors. The juxtaposition of these two questions reveals a consistent and often poignant gap. For many students, the question “what will I do when I grow up?” is an empty one – not because they lack aspirations, but because the multiplicity of possible futures (medicine, engineering, MotoGP racing, K-pop idol, tattooing) collides with the pragmatism of the “Plan B” (kindergarten teacher, choreographer). The future becomes a source of anxiety rather than a horizon of possibility: a space where dreams and realistic expectations diverge irreparably. As one student put it, the goal is simply “to be happy,” “to find myself,” or “to be at peace” – existential aspirations that resist translation into any clear professional path.
Surveillance vs Self-Care. Categories such as Detention and Factory gravitate toward the Surveillance pole. One student offered an especially vivid elaboration: “A prison, locked in a room with companions you did not choose and with whom you are forced to live, you have to ask permission to go out, eat, go to the bathroom, you have to raise your hand to speak, and this creates a huge barrier between the student and the teacher. School causes stress, performance anxiety, self-hatred, and makes us feel wrong”
This image resonates with Foucault’s (1975) analysis of disciplinary institutions: spaces organized through surveillance, hierarchical observation, and the meticulous regulation of bodies and time. The classroom, like the prison, becomes a space where power is exercised not through violence but through the quiet, pervasive logic of control.
While Family and Community embody Self-Care. A student captured the ambivalence of care and wounding in a single image: “I would say a heart with a band-aid on it, because school often breaks your heart but it can also mend it” “An abandoned park where kids still go to have fun. Hijacked and sunny. The school system and structure are decaying and don't do their job, but I experience school as a community of people, open and diverse”
Yet Foucault’s later work on the “hermeneutics of the subject” offers a different lens: the care of the self as a set of practices through which individuals constitute themselves ethically, in relation to others and to truth (Foucault, 2001). From this perspective, metaphors of family, community, and the “heart with a band-aid” can be read not merely as nostalgic ideals but as fragments of an alternative ethics of schooling – one centered on trust, listening, and mutual recognition rather than surveillance and judgment.
Authenticity vs Judgment. This conflict manifests in Test images and metaphors of the self under scrutiny. The pressure to conform was vividly expressed by a student who described school as: “A place where you can't be totally yourself” “A prison with gates that open every so often; you have to seize those openings” “A straitjacket. Not because I don't like school, but because sometimes, with the wrong teachers, you are led to do or think things that are not part of who you are”
The theme of standardization emerged in the metaphor of “A factory where workers are exploited and underpaid, because for school, the only thing that matters is that we work, follow the programs, and do things on time, but what remains with us and shapes us morally is not important” “A factory because it sucks the interests out of kids” “A reformatory, in that it wants to standardize all students in the same way, thus killing creativity and differences of opinion”
What these images share is the experience of school as a space of relentless performance – where students are constantly measured, evaluated, and ranked. The pressure is not merely to learn, but to prove oneself, to meet expectations that often feel externally imposed and internally foreign.
This interpretation is reinforced by students’ responses to another open-ended question in the questionnaire: Thinking about your school career so far, can you identify the most difficult moment or challenge you had to face? While a systematic analysis of the relationship between these responses and the metaphors lies beyond the scope of this methodological article, the recurring themes are telling. The answers reveal that the critical moments are almost always moments of evaluation: the first failure (“the first 3.5 (out of 10)”), the transition points marked by new forms of assessment (“the first Latin translation,” “the transition from the first two years (biennio) to the final three years (triennio) of secondary school”), the accumulation of tests (“the months with many oral exams and tests”), and the threat of academic failure (“remedial work,” “being held back”). The pervasiveness of evaluative anxiety extends beyond grades to the very relationship with teachers: students describe being “targeted” by a teacher, feeling “abandoned,” experiencing “humiliation” in front of the class. One student, reflecting on a teacher’s comment – “what kind of man will you become?” – adds: “I would kill myself if I were held back”. Another, who missed a year of school due to depression, recalls: “no teacher wanted to help me, and I felt abandoned to myself”. These testimonies illuminate the dark side of the performative logic characteristic of what has been called the “burnout society” (Han, 2015). Education becomes a treadmill of achievement where the boundary between self-expression and self-exploitation blurs. Students are not only judged by others; they learn to judge themselves, to internalize the gaze of the evaluator. The factory metaphor is particularly telling: it evokes not just standardization, but the extraction of value from one’s time, energy, and identity – a form of symbolic labor that leaves little room for authentic selfhood. In this dialectic, the question “who am I?” becomes entangled with “how am I performing?” – and the two are increasingly difficult to separate.
Ritualism vs Rebellion. Entertainment and “don’t know” responses signal this dialectic: detachment from a system perceived as meaningless. Students described school as “A zoo (basically everyone is like an animal and the sane people laugh at them to their faces)” “A circus because we're all clowns” “Hell, but fun” “A kennel”
These images capture the humiliation and absurdity underlying this dialectic. Here we encounter Merton’s concept of anomie Merton, (1968)– the discrepancy between cultural goals and legitimate means – in its most radical form. Unlike the conformism of the first dialectic, where students suspend judgment on goals while continuing to pursue them, here confidence in the system itself has collapsed. Ritualism becomes the only way to remain “inside”: students continue to follow legitimate practices but do so apathetically, superficially, or with ridicule. And yet, within these very images of discomfort we glimpse the contours of an alternative education. While never explicitly formulated, its qualities are inscribed in the images themselves: themes of trust, listening, and meaning emerge as the silent counterpoint to what is painfully present.
4.4. An Overall View
Coding of Metaphors Into Macro-Categories
5. Methodological Contribution
From a methodological standpoint, the central issue this study grapples with is the act of quantifying and situating metaphors. If the metaphor is, in Deleuzian terms, a “conceptual machine” that generates a multiplicity of meanings, then the distinction between quantitative and qualitative approaches is not merely technical. It represents two different ways of understanding meaning itself: one that tends toward stabilization and closure, and another that embraces mobility and proliferation. Numerical coding highlights trends and patterns; situated analysis restores the metaphor’s semantic richness and its generative, dialogic function. Crucially, the assumption that numerical data is inherently more objective than narrative data is a fallacy; both are constructs, shaped by the researcher’s position and the specific context of data collection. Following the tradition of visual and creative methods, our situated coding approach treats reflexivity as a primary epistemological tool. The researcher’s “narrative recomposition” is not a neutral act of classification but a situated interpretation - one that recognizes how the researcher’s own background and the students’ cultural resources interact in the construction of meaning. This approach acknowledges what Sennett (2006) calls the “great and unpardonable liberty” of interpretation: the risk of speaking both with and for participants. Yet this arbitrariness is treated not as a flaw to be eliminated, but as an epistemic space through which the complexity of social reality can be rendered visible. Our approach shares with Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) the conviction that images – whether physical or mental – can circumvent literal language and that meaning is co-constructed through dialogue. Where Photovoice uses cameras, situated coding uses metaphors; both treat participants as interpreters of their own worlds. For researchers wishing to adapt this approach, the situated coding process begins with the collection of metaphors within a relational context that allows for trust and spontaneity. This is followed by an initial coding into broad categories based on source domains and evaluative polarity. These categories are then refined through a phase of situated refinement, through dialogue and metaphor checking with participants that ensures interpretations remain anchored in lived experience. Finally, a holistic reading returns to the broader ethnographic context, connecting the emerging patterns to theoretical frameworks and to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under study.
6. Practical Implications and Future Applications
The situated coding approach opens several avenues for practical application. In educational settings, metaphors can serve as diagnostic tools for understanding school climate and as catalysts for participatory reflection. Teachers and guidance counselors might use metaphor elicitation to surface latent tensions within a class, creating spaces for dialogue around issues - such as surveillance, judgment, or meaninglessness - that often remain unspoken. The method’s attention to silence and non-response is particularly valuable for identifying students who may be disengaged or experiencing forms of distress that escape conventional monitoring.
At the institutional level, tracking shifts in metaphorical representations over time could offer indicators of cultural change, capturing dimensions of experience that standardized satisfaction surveys inevitably miss. The evocative power of metaphors also makes them effective for communicating research findings to broader audiences (practitioners, policymakers, and the public) bridging academic discourse and educational practice. Looking forward, several questions invite further inquiry. Under what conditions does quantification illuminate genuine social processes, and when might it obscure the very phenomena it seeks to capture? This question invites further reflection on how the principles of situated coding might be translated into heuristics or flexible guidelines for researchers working in different contexts - guidelines that would preserve the generative tension between systematic analysis and interpretive openness without sacrificing the situated, dialogic core of the approach. Applications beyond education also merit exploration: the method could prove valuable in organizational studies, health research, or any field where accessing latent meanings and giving voice to marginalized perspectives is central to the research endeavor.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the working group on the school guidance project at Marconi University for the valuable exchange of ideas and feedback. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the group or the institution. AI-assisted tools were used to support language refinement and section revision.
Ethical Considerations
Data were collected voluntarily through anonymous questionnaires within a school guidance project not originally designed as a research study. Formal ethics review was therefore waived. Students were informed that their responses would be used for educational and research purposes in an aggregated and anonymous form.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The data collection was conducted within a school guidance project promoted by Marconi University and funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.