CONCEITO DE IDENTIDADES E A IDENTIDADE PROFISSIONAL DOCENTE

Abstract

The interest in this subject comes from my post-doctoral internship held in 2003-2004 at the Lusófona University of Humanities and Technology in Lisbon. My focus was directed towards which mechanisms or factors were determinant/decisive/influential for the of the teaching professional identity construction. What does identity mean? From the etymological point of view, identity, from the Latin identitate, means: 1. Quality of what is identical; 2. A set of the person's own characteristics, such as name, profession, sex, fingerprints, physical defects, etc., which is considered exclusive of it and consequently taken into account when it needs to be recognized; consciousness that a person has of himself. Based on this assumption, by professional teacher identity I understand the positions of subject that are attributed, through different discourses and social agents, to teachers in the exercise of their functions in concrete working contexts. It also refers to all the representations put into circulation by the discourses related to the ways of being and acting of teachers in the exercise of their functions in educational institutions, more or less complex and bureaucratic. When we deal with social subjects that share spaces, times and social representations in/about school, we can not fail to consider that the larger context in which each of the subjects is inserted deeply interferes with their expectations and perceptions. Thus, I think that he teacher identity construction, that is, the conception of profession, is permeated by the forms of control over the teaching work carried out by the policies of standardization (state control) and the practices of protest and resistance unleashed by teachers (unions and associations).