Teaching and Researching at the University: on the Genesis of the Concept of a Teacher-Researcher
PIMENTA, Selma Garrido
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Crete, 22-25 September 2004: Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Abstract
The paper deals with partial results of a research concerning the intimately connected roles of teacher and researcher at the university. The concept of a teacher who at the same time applies his/her pedagogical skills and knowledge in research was suggested by previous activities within the university involving two different concepts, reflective teacher and practical epistemology. Taking these concepts as a starting point, the present research aims at investigating teaching practices in the public university so as to identify possibilities of interconnecting the different activities of teaching and researching. The research takes place at the University of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil and is coordinated by the Faculty of Education. The results of the research should address four main goals that can be described in the following terms:
To obtain a theoretical understanding of the concept of reflective teacher in terms of a practical epistemology;
To obtain a theoretical understanding of teaching at the university as a praxis capable of contributing knowledge concerning the problematic relationship between teaching and researching;
To contemplate the results of such theoretical activities in a broader perspective so as to compare them with similar research taking place in other countries;
To suggest concrete measures to effectively integrate teaching and researching at the university in institutional terms.
The research is based on two different conceptual points, which in their turn support the chosen methodology: the conceptions of teaching and learning. Given that learning is something that surpasses the mere acquisition of information, involving as it does also the processing, analyzing and comparing of it, putting it into context, calling it into question and interpreting it, it is not difficult to perceive that we must have a method of studying and inquiring about it. For the most part, teachers working at the university have learned to teach through teaching. The experience of teaching is one of the means to learn how to become a teacher, but it does not necessarily imply that it is always enough for it. And in that lies the central point concerning processes of preparation of teachers, in taking the experience of teaching as the starting point for a critical analysis of the experience itself so as to configure an epistemology of the practice of construction of the identity of teachers. The professional development of teachers is the main goal of educational proposals that focus on the formation of teachers not merely understood as a process involving a technical rationality that considers teachers as mere executors of superior decisions, but through a perspective that recognizes their capacity to make their own decisions. In confronting their everyday attitudes with theoretical analysis teachers are able to redefine their own practices and their theoretical support, to research for the constitution of their own practice so as to produce new knowledge concerning theoretical as well as practical aspects of their own activity. To transform the practices of teaching is something that can only be achieved through teachers’ enlarging of their own conscience concerning their own practice in the classroom as part of the university as a whole, and this is something that presupposes a theoretical and critical apparatus concerning reality.
Key Words. University – Teaching – Researching – Reflection – Epistemology.
Introduction
During the last eight years I have carried out three studies on teacher education: Didactics in the Licentiateship – a study of the effects of a course program in the teaching activity of former Licentiateship students (Pimenta, 1999a)[1], Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education (Pimenta, 1999b)[2], and Contemporary Research Trends: theoretical-epistemological-methodological and political issues is under way (Pimenta, 2003)[3]. The nature of the first two studies – investigations with teachers in schools – has led me to categorize them as practical-interpretive studies, and the last one as theoretical-interpretive. From them a number of questions have emerged and/or matured justifying a theoretical elaboration in the field of teacher education, and finding resonance in studies carried out by other researchers[4], giving shape to the motion of contemporary research trends in the field of teacher education. The issues can be organized in three groups: 1) the importance of the studies to real situations, configuring what has been called the epistemology of the practice[5], in which the processes of knowledge building by teachers are highlighted; 2) the importance of the ensuing concept of a reflective teacher, its possibilities and limitations in the school context; 3) the importance of teachers’ knowledges and identity, profession and professionality, pointing to the question of a teacher-researcher. This set of questions emerges in the context of countries that try to implement public policies that promote social and school democratization, in which teachers and schools, in their new curriculum organization logics and new management forms, have attained central focus.
The study entitled Didactics in the Licentiateship – a study of the effects of a course program in the teaching activity of former Licentiateship students has deepened theoretical aspects, especially issues related to teachers’ knowledges and identity[6]. The study Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education allowed later the move from action research to collaborative research[7]. And in the investigation Contemporary Research Trends: theoretical-epistemological-methodological and political issues it was possible to arrive at a critical genesis of the concept of a reflective teacher, a concept widely and indiscriminately adopted in academia and in neoliberal teacher education policies[8].
Among the three groups of questions described above, a category that deserves further development is the one centering on the teacher-as-researcher controversy: to what extent is it possible for the teacher to carry out research in his/her professional activity?[9]
These issues, which stemmed from studies conducted with primary school teachers, began to make their way into the field of higher education teaching; in our particular case, from experiences with teachers from the University of São Paulo which were taking part in the Teaching Improvement Program (PAE[10]), and also from the supervision of the postdoctoral work of Léa das Graças de Camargos Anastasiou[11].
Hence,
the purpose of this Project is to probe into the practices of teachers from a public university for the elements that point to a possible intermingling of teaching and researching; and to proceed, from the empirical data, to a critical conceptual analysis of this outlook on teaching.
Theoretical and methodological grounding for action research and collaborative research
The study entitled Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education had as its objective to analyze the changes in the practices and pedagogical theorizations experienced by a school team (teachers and coordinators) in a process of pedagogical intervention emphasizing the collective construction of knowledges at the workplace (a state school). The study belongs to the research trend that highlights continuing education as professional and institutional development, according to the theoretical perspective put forward by Fusari, 1988 and later by Nóvoa, 1992, which regards the teacher as a reflective professional (Schön, 1990).
This perspective has emerged as fruitful for the studies whose focus is to collaborate with the processes of teachers’ identity construction, understanding that the exercise of teaching does not reduce to the application of previously established models, but on the contrary, is constructed in the practice of historically situated teachers-subjects. Consequently, a formative process would marshal the knowledges from the theory of education necessary to the understanding of the teaching practice, capable of developing the competences and abilities such that teachers investigate their own teaching activity and, from it, constitute their teaching savoir-faire in a continual process of building new knowledges.
We consider that a professional identity is built from the social signification of the profession, from the constant revision of the social meanings of the profession, from the revision of traditions. But it is also built from the reaffirmation of culturally established practices that have remained significant, practices that withstand innovations because they are filled with knowledges true to the needs of reality. Also, it is built from the contrast between theories and practices, from the systematic analysis of the practices in light of existing theories, from the construction of new theories. And also, a professional identity is built by the meaning that each teacher, as agent and author, attributes to the teaching activity in his/her daily work based on values, ways of situating him/herself in the world, life history, representations, knowledge, his/her torments and desires, on the meaning that being a teacher has in his/her life, as well as on his/her network of relations with other teachers, within schools, unions, and within other groups.
It is therefore important to muster the knowledges of experience, the pedagogical knowledges, the scientific knowledges as constitutive elements of teaching in the processes of construction of teachers’ identities.
Such perspective introduces a new paradigm in teacher education and its implications for the teaching profession. It appeared in several countries during the last 30 years, and emerges as a policy of appreciation and personal/professional development of teachers and school institutions, since it assumes working conditions that encourage teachers’ continuing education.
In its beginnings we termed the research as collaborative and/or action research, understanding that its goal was to create a culture of analyzing practices with a view to their transformation by teachers in collaboration with university academics. Agreeing with Zeichner 1998:223 that collaborative research is an important path towards overcoming the divide between academics and teachers, but it is not just any collaborative research that will do that, it was significant to us to constitute it as action research and, furthermore, as a critical action research (Kincheloe, 1998:180).
One of the main challenges of collaborative research is the establishment of bonds between the university researchers and the school teachers. During the first two years of work at the school we tried to overcome the reservations and create an effective alliance with the teachers, helping them to conduct action projects. To this end, we started from their concerns, strongly related to their daily practices, and which emerged from their needs. We avoided ‘starting’ the research by bringing texts to be read by the teachers, which could reinforce the old dictum that ‘in practice the theory is different’. It was also necessary to overcome the representation that the academics would bring with them – or would intend to – the answers/recipes for what teachers should do to solve their problems. At the beginning, the form and direction we gave to the project, to its establishment and to the actions set in motion starting from the questions that emerged from the context – school and otherwise – was revealing of the theories of which we researchers are carriers.
Once the partnership was established and the teachers’ trust was gained, we began to prioritize the systematic dialogue about the daily issues with the help of texts (written texts and movies). We have thus systematized the questions around a few themes:
- the social purposes of school and education; what to educate teachers for: the teaching profession in contemporary society; what teacher I am/want to be: the knowledge, the savoir-faire, knowing how to be a teacher. What is it to be a teacher? How did I get here? Why and how do I remain? What do I intend for the future? Ethical competence and political commitment: what is ethical at school, and in this school? Relations at school: democracy? “Democratitis”? The commitment to teaching. The associations of the school with the education system and with higher bodies; the system’s authoritarianism and the space for school’s autonomy; collective work: what binds us together, what motivates us, what are our individual projects vis-à-vis our being teachers? And the group tensions: from competition, authoritarianism and individualism when sharing experiences, when searching together for new knowledges.
- And what about researching? Am I a teacher-researcher? What does it mean to be a teacher-researcher? What are the parameters for gauging a teacher-researcher? Is it possible to be a teacher-researcher in the current work conditions? Are we?
We studied texts and watched movies with which we could work with the role of the teacher in the organization of education actions and, in particular, in the promotion of pupils’ self-esteem.
It was interesting to witness the huge mobilizing potential of the texts when worked in their links with the practices. Teachers started to rate the readings more highly, and began to ask for them. The ruptures that the theory caused in their consolidated knowledges were also clearly seen.
Nevertheless, the uneasiness remained: what kind of research are we doing? Are we teachers-researchers?
The choice from the beginning of the project to utilize a qualitative research approach engendered at first some perplexities in the group of teachers, when they asked themselves what kind of research was this, so different from the traditional concept of research in which the academics arrived at school, observed, gathered data and information, asked questions, and then left, leaving at most a few recipes for teachers’ actions and usually the feeling that all they did was suspicious and all they said was incomprehensible.
Once such perception had been overcome, and the partnership relations had been established, there remained the task of clarifying the understanding of what was the research that was being carried out. For that, it was important to recover the objectives of the Project and to broaden the studies, resulting in the collective production of an article entitled Collaborative research at school as an approach to foster the development of the teaching profession[12].
The research about the role of practice in teachers’ education and professional identity has been developed by various authors: Sacristán, (1983), (1992), (1999); Porlán, (1987), on the development of small theory-based projects. Contreras, (1997); Goodson, (1993); Zeichner, (1991), (1998); Fiorentini, (1998); Elliot, (1993); Hargreaves, (1997); Baird, (1986); Pimenta, (1998); Penteado, (1998) Garrido and others, on school teams, reflection in action, and practice research.
In the process of the research carried out along this approach, a seminar with the participation of external consultants was organized with the purpose of expanding the analysis of theoretical-methodological and political issues of the projects[13]. Some of its conclusions point to the advances, the potential, and difficulties and, above all, to the need of widening and deepening the theoretical questions involved with collaborative action research:
- The majority of studies exhibit the characteristics of a constructive-collaborative model, which implies the in-process definition of the elements that comprise the partnership between the university and the school object of the research. The studies have as a feature the carrying out of experiences resulting in products, where both the processes employed and the products achieved – even if partial – are research data whose analyses often indicate the directions to be taken by the investigation.
- In that way, these researches are predominantly of an in-process character, and the analysis of the processes constitutes production of knowledge about the problems under study, pointing to the relevance (and difficulty) of the partial organization of research data that can allow a more systematic production of knowledge and also more possible to be shared among different perspectives on the knowledge about teachers’ development and professional learning processes at their workplace (…).
- As a general synthesis, it can be said that this kind of research is not outlined in a detailed and a priori controlled fashion, but it is constructed in the process having as its main thread the problem under investigation, and as probable directions to be followed the analyses offered by the partial data obtained, which can, indeed, redirect procedures to unforeseen foci. Under this prospect it is crucial in terms of group alertness to keep theoretical and methodological consistency. It is a constructive-collaborative model: strategies at the same time of action and of investigation conceived and developed during the investigation process with the intention of supplying answers – even if partial – to the research problem, and information indispensable to the decision-making related to the next steps to be taken in the project (…). The understanding of this kind of research as an open process: each project creates its own paths starting from the general problem and from specific questions related to its investigation (…).
- As a recommendation: to direct efforts to the construction and/or systematization of a methodology capable of capturing and analyzing data that see to the problems investigated by the groups. (Report from the SeminarUniversity and School: Collaborative Research for the Improvement of Public Education – University – Fapesp – Public School. FEUSP. 1999).
Explicating the collaborative action research.
Having in mind a better elucidation of the research Qualification of the Public Teaching and Teacher Education within this approach, we recover here its objectives and the text of Thiollent, 1994, a landmark on action research.
Indeed, the objectives of the research were: to articulate the professional development of the teachers involved; to analyze the processes of construction of the pedagogical knowledges by the school team; to stimulate changes in the school organizational culture; to contribute to public policies of teachers’ continuing education. Its hypothesis: every teacher is capable of producing (practical) knowledges on teaching, in as much as he/she proposes innovations in the practices, transforming and reorienting them with a view to overcoming difficulties and needs detected by the reflective-collaborative research.
The results expected from this collaboration can be summarized as follows: pedagogical changes, engendering the appreciation of work, personal growth, professional commitment, development of a culture of analysis and of participative organizational practices.