Amélia Lopes

Everyday life and everyday learning: the ways in which pre-service teacher education curriculum can encourage personal dimensions of teacher identity

This article presents and discusses the findings of a research project, the main objective of which is to identify curriculum components that promote personal development as a nuclear part of teacher professional identity formation through pre-service teacher education. Curriculum is viewed as an ecological scenario with different subsystems and both as formal and informal. Identity formation is conceived as an ever-provisional result of a double transaction: the biographical one and the relational one. The curricula of four different historical periods of pre-service teacher education in Portugal and the professional identity of teachers trained within them were characterised through collection and analysis of documents and biographical narratives. Crossing results from the four periods, the quality of school climate emerges as an important variable to the quality of the teachers’ identity. The lifelong learning ethos seems to emerge when the training curriculum connects everyday learning with everyday life, namely by urging the students’ involvement in school life, peer learning activities and peer and teacher educators’ informal learning activities.

Teachers as Professionals and Teachers' Identity Construction as an Ecological Construct: an agenda for research and training drawing upon a biographical research process

The study of teacher identity developed greatly during the 1990s and, in a way, replaced other studies on teacher professionalism. Highlighting the interactions, emotions and cognitions in their everyday expression, these studies contributed to making visible the role of specific communities of professionals in valuing and improving professional action. However, after almost two decades, it became clear that the study of the construction of teacher identity could not be based solely on the description of the interactions, but in fact also required a macro-sociological analysis. Coordinating these levels of analysis is important for developing the construct of the teacher as a professional, a profile that inspires current teacher training policies in Europe. Based on theoretical contributions such as the ‘construction of professional identities for real social change’ (Claude Dubar), and the ideal-typical model of professionalism (Eliot Freidson), this article aims to present the construction of teacher identity as a subjective dimension of the process of teacher professionalisation, viewing it as an ecological construct. To this end, the article presents the results of research carried out during the 1990s and the early twenty-first century, in order to shed some light on the dynamics inherent to each of the levels of analysis and the interactions which are established between them. The article concludes with a discussion of the advantages of this approach for teacher training and research.

Being a teacher educator: professional identities and conceptions of professional education

Background: This study consists of an analysis of the conceptions that teacher educators have of their work, identifying the relationship between their professional identities and their views of the professional qualities of the future teachers. Method and design: Semi-directive interviews with 19 teacher educators of a primary education teachers course were held, and qualitative analysis was undertaken. It was important to listen to the teacher educators in terms of meanings that were indicative of their identities, of their conceptions of teaching in primary education and of the corresponding professional teachers. Findings: The findings are grouped into four categories of professional identities of teacher educators: academic, cooperative, dual and supervisor (the latter two being mediating identities), and those different conceptions about school education and teacher professional work. The conceptions show similarities and divergences in terms of the knowledge that they think is important, their beliefs and personal values, the matters that they problematise and their performances as professional trainers and educators of future teachers. Conclusions: These findings enable us to understand that the identity of teacher educators, in the case studied, is largely built on a foundation of past and present experience gained in the field of school education. The exception is of the academic sort of teacher educators, whose identity appears to be based on the restricted area of initial teacher education.

Constructing Professional Identities in Portuguese Primary School Teachers

In this article I describe a study that analyzed changes in professional identity that accompanied changes in curriculum development. In epistemological terms, the study was informed by the interpretative paradigm. In theoretical terms, it was founded on symbolic interactionism. In technical terms, it included gathering information, both at the beginning and at the end of the 2-year intervention, on the process, the identity structures of the people involved, and their perceptions of school. It is concluded that changes in curriculum development require changes in professional identities; that identity change is communicational, involving a decentering of current representations of innovation; and that individual development depends on the interaction between the identity required by individuals and the identity offered by significant others.

Building communities in higher education: the case of nursing

The historic and current case to retain a focused clinical nursing identity within an academic context is explicit; however there is tension between the need for excellence in teaching and research, and obligation to maintain a credible clinical identity. Nursing is politically and vocationally advanced but, arguably, weaker academically. Considered an ‘old vocation’ but a ‘young discipline’, nursing lacks the traditional background found in established academic communities. Nurses still find it difficult to ‘let go’ of the past and new academics will often try to re-create a clinical role because they lack confidence in their ability to fulfil an academic one. Moving forward, the new graduate nursing programmes and the growing number of hybrid or ‘pracademic’ roles spanning education and practice will, through the co-creation of knowledge, challenge discipline boundaries and produce a new generation of leaders for the profession.

How Can Teacher Education Fulfill Its More Generous Intentions? Reflections Concerning the Pernicious Effects of Educational Evaluation

Teacher education is currently informed by perspectives which aim to improve how it affects teachers’ practices and professionalization. Although new ways of educating teachers arise, they still have to coexist with more traditional forms of teacher education, notably, those related to the assessment of learning.

For a dialectical and communication-related identity in Nursing

The construction of the identity of a professional group is the subjective dimension of its professionalization process, understood as a process of affi rmation, autonomy construction and social recognition(1-2). Because it is founded on relationships, of recognition or non-recognition, identity is a concept that is related to communication, but it is translated into objective dimensions of the professionalization process (objective statute, autonomy and social image). Thus, identity is internal and external, that is, it refers both to a professionalism that comes from the inside (which, being diverse, must be clarifi ed), and to a professionalism that comes from the outside – concerning the social recognition that is usually achieved through the strength of the professionalism that comes from the inside(3). Although the study of identity can focus on the professionalism that comes from the outside, it is especially relevant to explain the professionalism that comes from the inside and to inform self-regulation processes – clear defi nition of the knowledge, ethics, practices and relations that are typical of it –, for although the statute, the social image and the autonomy recognized from the outside can derive from external prescriptions, they depend mainly on what the professional group is capable of doing internally.

Para uma identidade dialética e comunicacional em Enfermagem

The construction of the identity of a professional group is the subjective dimension of its professionalization process, understood as a process of affi rmation, autonomy construction and social recognition(1-2). Because it is founded on relationships, of recognition or non-recognition, identity is a concept that is related to communication, but it is translated into objective dimensions of the professionalization process (objective statute, autonomy and social image). Thus, identity is internal and external, that is, it refers both to a professionalism that comes from the inside (which, being diverse, must be clarifi ed), and to a professionalism that comes from the outside – concerning the social recognition that is usually achieved through the strength of the professionalism that comes from the inside(3). Although the study of identity can focus on the professionalism that comes from the outside, it is especially relevant to explain the professionalism that comes from the inside and to inform self-regulation processes – clear defi nition of the knowledge, ethics, practices and relations that are typical of it –, for although the statute, the social image and the autonomy recognized from the outside can derive from external prescriptions, they depend mainly on what the professional group is capable of doing internally.

Research: an insight on how it is valued by Portuguese and English teacher educators

ABSTRACT The quality of how teachers are being prepared is seen as a priority in the twenty-first century and engagement with research is often considered a crucial element of initial teacher education programmes. Institutional and national contexts have an impact in the way research is valued. This paper investigates the perspectives of Portuguese and English teacher educators towards the value given to research in initial teacher education. Interviews were completed with teacher educators working within different kinds of higher education institutions—university, polytechnic and teaching-led university. Results suggest that research has a significant presence and relevance in all cases but is valued differently

Experiências da Gestão Acadêmica da Docência Universitária

Considerando um cenario de transformacoes do e no ensino superior e de intensificacao do trabalho docente, este artigo apresenta uma discussao sobre a gestao academica no quotidiano do professor universitario, relacionada com o ensino, a investigacao e a extensao. Discutimos as experiencias de 23 professores universitarios, do Brasil e de Portugal, a partir de entrevistas de tipo biografico. Entre aspectos positivos da gestao esta a possibilidade de uma participacao democratica nas decisoes da universidade e de uma visao clara da estrutura e do funcionamento do ensino superior, enquanto alguns aspectos negativos reforcam a aproximacao da gestao com atividades burocraticas e administrativas, gerando desvalorizacao e desprestigio da dimensao.