ABSTRACT
HOBOLD, Márcia de Souza. Forms of identity constitution of teachers/heads of
departments of teacher education (licensure) courses.
Researches on teacher education (licensure) courses are important in order to know
the context where the education of the prospective teachers has begun. The
professionals who work in such courses have their own life stories, which are
constituted by their personal, academic and professional experiences. In view of this
factor, the current research has had as main purpose to understand how the identity
forms of the teachers/heads of the licensure department are constituted in social and in
work relations. The field of study of the current research was a communitarian
university. At the first moment of data gathering, nine teachers/heads of department
have been interviewed and they have told us the main activities developed in their day
by day. A new interview was carried through later with the same teachers/heads, to
better explore the aspects related to their professional /personal trajectory and to the
performance of their function. Also four teacher educators, four former-students of
licensure and the administrator directly connected to the heads of department have
been interviewed. Finally, two teachers/heads have been interviewed with the objective
to know the process of constitution of their identity forms in social and in work relations.
These data had been complemented by document analysis of the institution. In the
investigation plan there was the intention to follow the same steps of Claude Dubar
(1997, 1998, 2005, 2006), in the studies carried out among French workers, in order to
know how the life trajectories constitute the identity forms of the teachers/heads who
act in licensure courses and their relation with the context of their work. Other authors
have also constituted the theoretical structure of this thesis, amongst them: Andres
(2001, 2006), Bauman (2004, 2005), Campos (2002), Candau (1988, 1997), Diniz-
Pereira (2000), Elias (1994), Romanowski (2002) and Weber (2004). The narratives of
teachers/heads of department on their familiar, academic and professional stories have
been analyzed, as well as their leadership work. The “transition” of a teacher educator
to a head of department was reported by many of them as difficult and even
anguishing. It was not easy, for many of them, to take on a multiplicity of activities
involved in the leadership function, for which they were not always felling prepared.
They have had to restructure their knowledge, to develop abilities, and to answer to
totally new situations and demands. The research has revealed that there is dynamicity
in the (re)constitution of the identity forms, which is a process where the other has an
important role. There is a permanent transaction between the “identity for myself” (I)
and the “identity for the other”. The outcome of the research has corroborated the
thesis that the configuration of the identity forms is directly tied to the situations of
social and work relations, and that these can affect the daily actions of the heads of
department of the licensure.
Word-key: Identity forms. Professional identities. Work of the heads of department of
the licensure. Teacher qualification.