Social Representations of Advisor Professors Regarding the Work of Educators

Author(s):

Maria de Fátima Barbosa Abdalla

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 08 B, Research on Professional Identity, Beliefs and Understanding of Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-30

08:30-10:00

Room:

NIG, HS 3F

Chair:

Graeme Hall

Contribution

The purpose of this study, based on Moscovici (1978,1988) and Bourdieu (1997,1998), is to identify elements to understand the social representations of advisor professors regarding the educator’s role in the professionalizing process. The research work was carried out at a community/confessional university, and its subjects were professors of different Licentiate Courses (Education, Letters, Biological Sciences, Mathematics, History, Philosophy, and Geography). The first concerns regarding this work surfaced on account of the countless reforms that have been introduced by the public policies, particularly in higher education, which, by defining a series of innovations in the educational system, ended up catapulting the educator’s role to the forefront in this context of change. From this perspective, a few questions arose: what are the professors’ needs and expectations regarding the educator’s work and professionalization conditions? How do they face the labor conditions in their institutions, responding to the multiple demands imposed on them in their daily activities? To what extent has the increase in work and activities brought about by the different reforms contributed to professionalize and/or deteriorate the educator’s work? Finally, what are the advisor professor’s representations (and those of future educators) about the educator’s work with regard to the process of professionalization? Considering the information and images obtained and, particularly, the attitudes of endorsement (or not) that appear through the research project’s subjects’ discursive manifestations, the field of social representations was outlined, revealing the advisor professor’s mechanisms of objectivation and anchoring (MOSCOVICI, 1987, 1988) regarding their work as educators and professionalization; as well as their habitus (BOURDIEU, 1997, 1998, 2004).

Method

As methodological procedures, we used a questionnaire composed of closed, open, and evocation questions in the 1st phase. It focused on: professional identity; the work and advisory contexts; the types of qualification and knowledge.The 2nd phase gave rise to the focal group, composed of nine professors, developing three thematic lines:1st the professor’s needs/perspectives regarding the educator’s work and the professionalizing conditions;2nd the process of professionalization and/or deterioration; 3rd the professor’s position when dealing with the multiple reforms: from the logic of reform to the logic of innovation.These gatherings were preceded by qualification episodes, in which the professors set their personal/professional tracks and their current positions as qualifier professors.Semi-structured interviews were held with seven of these professors in the 3rd phase.Three dimensions of analysis were highlighted, covering: 1st the characterization of the professional identity; 2nd training and professional tracks; and 3rd, the context of work and training.

Expected Outcomes

As partial results, a differentiated space of senses was analyzed in two dimensions: in the (re)construction of the professional identity and in the logic of resistance and/or innovation. The first dimension reflected on a few elements (type of knowledge and professional image) to understand how the advisor professor “reconstructs” in his/her professional identity. The second translated the tensions and intentions professors manifest (or incorporate) when revealing the sense/meaning of the educator’s work and highlight the limits of training for change insofar as their professionalization process is concerned. It is noticeable that the advisor professors’ discourses unveil a little of the territory of the habitus (BOURDIEU, 1997, 1998), of the dispositions acquired on account of belonging to the social group, and are “doubly determined”, whether by a structured structure (the meaning of the educator’s work), or by the possibility of a structuring structure (the educator’s work of meaning).

References

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Author Information

Maria de Fátima Barbosa Abdalla

Santos Catholic University

Santos/SP

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