Teachers Beginning Their Work in Schools

Abstract

Within the framework of the research project entitled The University of the Street, and from the perspective of action research proposed by socio-discursive interactionism as a theoretical-methodological framework, together with Foucauldian discourse analysis (2002), our research focuses on the relationship between teachers’ training and practice and on the study of their institutional adaptation. This adaptation involves the acquisition of non-formal learning linked to UdelaC; that is, learning that institutions do not provide: learning related to interaction with students, colleagues, administrators, and other members of the educational community of practice (Wenger, 2001), as well as with other institutional and ministerial spheres of education.

The methodology consists in comparing the prescribed written texts of the profession with the oral texts of practice during and after teaching work. The approach that brings together the didactics of school disciplines and ergonomics, or work analysis, guides the specific analyses of activity: first, real work; then, prescribed work; and, finally, the interpretation offered by the actors themselves.

On the other hand, discourse analysis of the different records obtained—interviews, anecdotes, and reports—makes it possible to obtain contrasting networks that contribute to comparative work. From the comparison of the research findings, we understand that a non-formal learning process effectively takes place and is fundamental to the construction of the teaching role.

The team is composed of two research groups—one from the National University of Jujuy and the other from the National University of Comahue—together with a teacher training institute, IFDC Bariloche, located in distant regions of our country.