Teaching profession and teacher identity: a study with teachers from the PEC-Municípios program

Author(s)

Marcela Oliveira Soga

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Educação (FE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2014-08-08

Examining board members

Belmira Amelia de Barros Oliveira Bueno; Isabel Melero Bello; Helena Coharik Chamlian

• Advisor: Belmira Amelia de Barros Oliveira Bueno

Abstract

The work has as its object of study the issue of teacher identity. It focuses on the formative trajectory of a specific group of teachers tenured teachers from public school systems who attended a special higher education training program with the main purpose of analyzing and characterizing the process of identity development at this stage of their professional careers. It takes into account both the formative paths of this group and the context in which emerged the forces that pushed teachers to seek a higher education certificate. In this sense, the work tries to identify possible connections between obtaining a higher education certificate and the representations teachers start to make of themselves as they attend the program. The research is of a qualitative nature. The corpus of the analysis consists of the memoir writing created by the teachers during the course of the program, and of testimonies given by twelve teachers in interviews that were recorded and then transcribed. The empirical framework was the PEC-Municípios program (São Paulo, 2003-2004), described as a presence course with strong support from interactive media, which had as its goal to offer the licentiateship degree to teachers that hitherto had only a secondary school level formation. The theoretical background comes from the concept of identity, based on studies by Bauman (2005) and Dubar (2009, 2005). The questions related to teacher professionalization have as their source the works of Bourdoncle (2000), and to work specifically with the problems of teacher identity the study draws from texts by Lawn (2000) and Garcia et al. (2005). The analyses indicate that both the education and the pedagogical practice are indispensable in the process of identification with the professional activity, and that obtaining a higher education certificate enhanced the teachers self-esteem and their confidence to justify their practices. We have also observed the impermanent and fluid nature of identity, since many teachers had their professional lives marked by fragmentation and uncertainty, and some of them still contemplate other professional choices. Apart from that, the study made clear the importance that the financial security afforded by the public service had in the teachers decision to remain in this profession, a career marred by very low prestige, in view of the financial instability they faced in their life histories. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/14202-6 - Teacher Universitalization and Teacher Identity Development
• Grantee: Marcela Oliveira Soga
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master