Brazilian primary teachers ascend the ladder of higher
Brazilian primary teachers ascend the ladder of higher education. A contribution to the study of minorities/majorities XIII Inter-American Symposium on Ethnography and Education UCLA, September 18 -20, 2013 Belmira Bueno, Flavia Sarti, Eliana Scaravelli University of São Paulo
Maestras brasileñas de primaria galgam los pasos de la educación superior. Una contribución al estudio de las minorías / mayorías XIII Inter-American Symposium on Ethnography and Education UCLA, September 18 -20, 2013 Belmira Bueno, Flavia Sarti, Eliana Scaravelli University of São Paulo
An overview Brazil> 200 million inhabitants 2 million > Basic Education (BE) teachers > 80% of women 52 million of students The teachers > among the largest professional groups The social, political and economic disadvantage has grown Several kinds of social exclusion and within the profession itself Sharp feminization, reduction of salaries, adverse working conditions, besides the imprecisions of the professional field
The National Law of Education, 1996 All the teachers should be formed at Higher Education (HE) Creation of special programs in this level A new model of in-service teacher education semi-presence based on Distance Learning and ICT consortia between public and/or private universities, secretariats of education and private foundations. briefer than conventional HE courses off line activities > in the evenings, outside of university campus > divided among several teaching figures (tutors, assistants, supervisors etc. ) thousands of teachers have obtained a HE certificate in Brazil.
The ethnographic research First study: 18 months field work from 2001 -2002 in two classes of student-teachers during their readings activities > the special program in HE accomplished in São Paulo city. Second study: 18 months field work from 2003 -2004; > the 2 nd edition of the same program; observations were done during the online and offline student-teachers’ activities. Third study: still in course, it includes observations in the classrooms of eight teachers who attended that HE course. These studies included interviews with teachers and people responsible for the program; collecting of official documents and those written by the teachers
Focus: the teachers’ reading and writing The relevance of these activities for citizenship Its importance for the students’ learning The relations teachers maintain with this cultural practices The involvement of the teachers with reading and writing every day during the course The use of various supports for that> paper notebooks, keyboard, computing screen and the Internet
Questions What the benefits of this experience for the teachers? What are its effect on their daily pedagogical work? And for this symposium: Are not the teachers at risk to being integrated, subtly and gradually, into the group of social minorities?
Minorities, majorities groups subjected to stigmatization and discrimination processes that result in forms of social inequality and exclusion. physical and symbolic violence the role of the stereotypes to maintain the social and symbolic order > who are “inside”, who are “outside” Ex: the indigenous populations, blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, women More recently: the elderly, obese, homeless, among other groups emerged from neoliberal economic policies that engender inequalities M&M > unbalanced power within society and of the subordinate position experienced by certain groups.
Minorities Segments of societies that possess cultural or physical traits that are devalued and not inserted in the culture of the majority, generating a process of exclusion and discrimination. (Strey, Guareschi and Bueno, 2002) - groups that exist in the social border or outside it, to wich autonomy and responsibility are denied and does not have the trust and recognition of other groups (Moscovici, 2000)
Teachers’ profile Working in a double shift, usualy in two different schools Age from 20 to 60 or more; Only 5% are from a family of higher socioeconomic background Majority are from poor areas of North Eastern region or from the state of Minas Gerais Their parents had few years of schooling > they started to work very early During the school years > few books to read; great difficult to succeed The differences from the cultural capital (Bourdieu) are clear in the both cases
Crossing borders? Which means attending the special programs in HE? Having not a identity of university students, but that of ‘teacher-students’ a process of exclusion and discrimination, an imposition of the State in partnership with the market Their professional cultures embedded in a pragmatic rationality, as well their social origins, have been neglected in the academic context Reading and writting > a difficult challenge
Teachers’ modes of reading Strong process of orality > dicussion of subjects related to chool daily life Subvertion of the order of academic discourses > turning the readings closer to their interests and working needs Relations with the texts > based on their value of use and marked by the teaching culture Clashed with the academic way of reading anchored in a discursive logic and with the objetives of the program to form “new readers” > devices of control > legitimate ways of reading
A symbolic violence The teachers as “new readers” The program and the use of devices of control to legitimate ways of reading Teachers search to get these ways of reading to became that ideal reader-teacher A tension between coertion and freedom, adherence and resistance > a feeling of expropriation of their own gestures, knowledges and professional practices The knowledges about teaching X knowledges for the teaching
After the course, what has remained? Observation of 8 teachers that had finished the program Objectives: to problematize the guarantee of rights of learning to read and write to the pupils from public schools, which belong largely to the underprivileged segments of the population to identify possible effects of that program upon their teaching practices Starting point: the didactic material offered by the program, that had a strong constructivist tone in opposition to traditional conceptions.
Theoretical knowledge X practice The 4 teachers of 1 st and second grade demonstrated knowledge of the reading hypotheses formulated by Emília Ferreiro. But, They still used exercises from the old syllabic method, with three of them using children's limericks and songs as a literacy resource Reading almost always linked to the writing, focusing on deciphering the code, just with the purpose of forming the literary reader still in his/her childhood away from the classrooms.
Theoretical knowledge X practice The practices of the 4 teachers of 3 rd and 4 th grade: Emphasis on grammar; particular concern with the names of linguistic phenomena Few activities of production of texts by the students; no rewriting and revision; attention is to correcting spelling only. One teacher alternated between reading aloud, done by herself, and autonomous readings of texts freely chosen by the pupils.
In sum … Two out of the eight teachers observed seem to offer to their pupils learning opportunities that would warrant their right to read and write proficiently Few of them left behind their methodological beliefs, as indeed seems to be the case generally in the teaching profession.
Why this occur? The gaps and deficiencies in reading and writing accumulated during the schooling. Now, the lack of favorable conditions of working to encourage the teachers for re-creating pedagogical practices Lack the confidence to teachers strengthen their professional habitus. Lastly, it became apparent that the reading habitus and the writing habitus of each teacher influence to a large extent the teaching habitus relative to the teaching of reading and writing > the cultural capital
Conclusions (rather provisional) A great paradox in the democratization of HE in Brazil in the field of the teaching profession: Whilst teachers have achieved the right to take a higher education course, they have been stolen of the right to receive a formation on a par with those that enroll in regular HE courses The State tries to pay a social debt but it has made use of a device that stimulates the creation of new social hierarchies, both at university and in the teaching profession The devaluation of the certificate > the first symptom of a new process of inflation of school titles and of the ensuing reclassification of the groups Nevertheless, teachers were unanimous in declaring that they felt very happy with the diploma.
Our questions remain How is this satisfaction reflected in their daily teaching activity and in their careers? Are not teachers being captured in the traps of the discourse of (in)competence (Souza)? And, faced with the exhortations about the pressing need for lifelong formation, are they not been led to believe that each one of them is “a teacher always under formation”? (Bocchetti)
Are the teachers at risk to cross the borders and enter the range of minorities? The continuing education in the way it has been done in Brazil stimulates an image of social inclusion that, in reality, materializes neither for those who take part in the program, nor for their pupils.
Thank you very much! Belmira Bueno University of São Paulo (USP) Brazil bbueno@usp. br
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