Teachers’ Trainers. Social Representations of Their Profession

Abstract

This paper reports the results obtained from a study on the document titled “Social Representations” in teachers from four different Bachelor’s degree level schools in Mexico City. The objective was to identify beliefs, opinions, and attitudes about their professional roles associated with their professions because these beliefs and opinions will guide their professional practices on the field. The sample taken applied what was called “Intentional Probabilistic.” Over 13 teachers were interviewed. They had different professional profiles and various types of work. A questionnaire was applied to the teachers; it was divided into 45 questions organized into four parts. The program used is called “Atlas ti” based on three central dimensions that were Information, Representation Field, and Attitude. Among the results, we can observe that all the participants are full-time teachers and have a Level C degree. None of them has a Ph.D.; half of them have a Master’s Degree, and the rest, a Bachelor’s degree. Their different beliefs derive from their university programs, which follow a direction imposed by the Mexican government Department of Education. Their beliefs on what a good teacher should be are related to responsibility and the formation of good human beings and citizens. They are also related to being passionate about the role of teaching, understood as dedication, courage, sacrifice, frustration, disappointments. These representations are situations related to historical developments of this long-standing profession, but not to the production of knowledge itself. We can conclude that teachers are a fundamental part of higher-level education schools. Understanding teachers’ thoughts, beliefs, and practices is essential to improve the quality of education in these institutions, as well as to generate viable training and update proposals that have an impact on their professional practices.