Teacher training in Portuguese investigation - a look at the role of the teacher and professional knowledge

• Autor(a) principal: Roldão, Maria do Céu
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/investigacaoeducacional.2011.3334

Available research about teachers’ education has been developing in Portugal from early 1990s. In this paper, the main conclusions of some major literature reviews on teachers education along this period are examined, focusing on the representation they reflect about what means to be a teacher in Portugal in the transition of the millennium – teaching activity and organization of teaching work – and about the more evident conceptions on the nature, construction and use of the specific knowledge required for teaching. Three extensive research reviews, published in 2004, 2005 and 2006, were examined. They cover the period between 1990 and 2006 and focus pre-service and inservice teachers education, supervision and identity, and organization of teaching work in schools. The predominant features evident in these reviews point out to the need of a further clarification of the boundaries of teachers’ education research field, emphasize influence of the perceived nature of the activity of teaching and of the specifi c knowledge it requires over teacher education practices, and illuminate the need to overcoming the traditional dychotomic view of theory-practice as a key question for the field. In methodological terms, , the reviews exhibit an unbalance between types of research, with a strong predominance of descriptive research and case studies, the orientation towards studying conceptions and representations rather than actual teaching and teacher education practices. These aspects contribute to a relatively insufficient clarifi cation of the boundaries of the research field under analysis.