This hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry describes the lived experiences of three visibly tattooed teachers and what it is like to sense their tattooed flesh while they are at school. Lived experience descriptions were collected during in-depth interviews and from personal reflective writings conducted by the study author, who is also a tattooed teacher. Using hermeneutic research approaches outlined by Max van Manen and Linda Finlay, lifeworld descriptions of visibly tattooed teachers are presented in the form of anecdotal passages that urge readers to ‘step into tattooed skin’. Drawing from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, Luce Irigaray’s work on intersubjectivity, Michel Foucault’s notion of the disciplinary gaze, theories of the look in education forwarded by Madeline Grumet, and Judith Butler’s notion of subversive bodies, meanings are made of tattooed teachers’ experiences of adopting uncomfortable teacher identities and then growing comfortable in their professional roles. Through hermeneutic analysis, five main themes are presented, constituting the “essences” of the phenomemon of living as a visibly tattooed teacher: Trying to Fit; Mis-fit; Fit. You? Fit You!; Fitting In; and One Size Does Not Fit All.

For those who teach in higher education and draw on vocational rather than academic backgrounds, the processes of socialisation are complex, extended and highly conditioned by their ‘past’ professions. These professions are seen to provide both ‘resources’ and ‘dissonances’ in the transitions that constitute their progress towards becoming a teacher. Whilst a great deal has been written of these processes in older universities with high concentrations of academic staff whose careers are largely confined to higher education itself, relatively little is known of parallel processes in newer institutions that are highly connected to specific kinds of workplace. This study addresses the way in which the current literature has under-represented the experiences and perspectives of ‘late entrants’ to teaching in higher education who come to work in a university from a profession that is ‘outside’ of higher education itself. The study uses a case study approach based on a series of semistructured interviews to reveal and analyse the processes of socialisation for ten participants undertaking a programme of teacher training (PGCAP). It describes a certain kind of ‘insider’ research where closeness and rapport exist alongside asymmetries of power and forms of ‘guilty knowledge’. Narrative methods are used to analyse and represent the data from differing perspectives to reveal a range of engagements, commitments and experience. These are seen to shape the socialisation process through key ‘turning points’ promoting movement towards a teacher identity. The study draws on theoretical perspectives based on the work of Bernstein (2000) and Bandura (1997) in order to analyse core processes both situationally and from an individual perspective. The research raises key questions about the learning environments created for participants on this teacher training course and the wider discourses that influence such provision. It also challenges a growing assumption that the attempts by the state to control and improve teaching in higher education are incorporated into individual teaching practice.

Professional learning, commonly referred to in policy and practice as continuing professional development, is presented to teachers as both a requirement and an entitlement in current education policy (Gewirtz, 2002; Ball, 2003). This work explores the ways in which professional learning is experienced by three teachers, and the meanings they attribute to those experiences. The study adopts a narrative approach to these accounts (Clandinin, 2013; Clandinin and Connelly, 1996; 1998; 2004) and is underpinned by the recognition of the complexity in the interplay between the individual teacher and their social context specifically focusing on “the relationship between the state, the ideologies of professionalism, and lived interiority” (Hey and Bradford, 2004: 693). The methodology was developed to overcome the problem of policy and aspects of practice that fail to focus on the effective involvement and engagement of teachers in professional learning: the teachers have become “missing persons” (Evans, 1999: i). The research process placed the meaning made by the teachers of their past experiences, and the way they understood them in the present, at the centre of the research (Kelchtermans, 2009; MacLure, 1993). Data were collected as part of a collaborative process with teachers who shared and analysed their narratives of professional learning through a series of research conversations. The teachers gave accounts of the people and incidents that they understood to be significant in influencing their professional learning, in relation to their expectations of themselves and of professionals and people more generally. In doing so they drew on both professional and personal contexts (Makopoulou and Armour, 2011). There were significant challenges in relation to ethics, analysis and re-presentation. This study illustrates the complexity and contingency of teachers’ professional learning through their understanding of themselves and their interaction with, and response to, significant people and incidents (Kelchtermans and Vandenberghe, 1994). Their “stories to live by” (Clandinin and Connelly, 1998: 149) illuminate the ways in which teachers explain the complexities and contingencies underpinning their experiences of professional learning. The data illustrate the crucial role that context plays in understanding professional learning (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000: 27) and the challenges teachers face in balancing their roles as policy subjects and policy actors (Ball, Maguire, Braun and Hoskins, 2011a and b). This work makes a unique contribution to the field of professional learning by using the detailed individual cases of each teacher to illustrate general concerns for the development of effective policy and practice. It also contributes to the methodological debates around the use of narratives as a means of understanding the “human condition” (Arendt, 1958). The data challenge us to consider the possibilities that narrative accounts and analyses offer for the generation of knowledge in this area with implications for both teachers and other professionals, and policy and practice.

Even though living openly is associated with better health, gay teachers are in an ambiguous position legally and socially when it comes to finding safe and successful ways to living openly while at work in K-8 schools. The purpose of this grounded theory study is to describe approaches gay teachers have found and employed to living openly in K-8 schools. From the interview data collected from eleven gay teachers, an identity development model was produced, which the researcher entitled The Gay Teacher's Workplace Visibility Process Model. No existing identity development models focus solely on the approaches gay teachers take to living openly in the K-8 school. The Gay Teacher's Workplace Visibility Process Model consists of four stages: becoming visible to administrators and other teachers, becoming visible to students, becoming visible to students' parent, and identity maintenance. It is hoped that this study will ultimately prompt more gay teachers to live openly as the model is intended to serve as a guide for future or current gay K-8 teachers who wish to live openly at work. This study also has implications for administrators and teachers, the first people gay teachers come out to. Administrators and other teachers can support gay teachers in becoming fully visible at work safely and successfully through their actions and words, which could potentially lead to more accepting school environments for everyone through the fostering of a culture of inclusivity.

Qualitatively and quantitatively, this thesis investigates student engagement and success in post-secondary teacher education. The research is a case study conducted in Rwanda using the Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE), interviews, and document analysis techniques. It aims at comparing two groups of teacher education students in terms of how different factors of student engagement affect their performance. The study provides a sound contribution in understanding how students with a professional background effectively engage and succeed in modules/courses of the teacher education programme that are shared with students without such background. The study claims that student teachers’ beliefs brought to teacher education play a vital role in determining the level of student engagement and performance in both professional and non-professional courses rather than their academic background. Findings indicate that these courses were taught and learnt in inappropriate teaching and learning environments. Despite unfavourable conditions, results also indicate that students with professional preparation prior to the post-secondary teacher education programme have positive beliefs about the career, interact with lecturers and peers more frequently, devote much time and effort on educationally purposeful activities, and participate more frequently in engaging activities than students who have just started teacher training. In addition, the study indicates that these factors of student engagement influence performance. The study also reveals that the former have developed their professional teacher identity which facilitates their social and academic integration and their intrinsic motivation to learning for the career while the latter are struggling learning for the profession in which they are not motivated and interested. Therefore, students with teacher identity perform significantly better than those who are new in teacher training even in non-professional courses in which they have fewer prerequisites.

O trabalho tem por objeto de estudo a questão da identidade docente. Focaliza o percurso de formação de um grupo específico: professoras efetivas de sistemas públicos de ensino que frequentaram um programa especial de nível superior, tendo por objetivo principal analisar e caracterizar o processo de desenvolvimento de identidade nessa etapa da vida profissional. Leva em conta, de um lado, os percursos de formação do grupo e, de outro, o contexto no qual emergem as pressões que levam as professoras a buscarem o diploma de nível superior, bem como o papel do Estado nesse processo. Nesse sentido, busca-se identificar possíveis relações entre a obtenção de um diploma de nível superior e as representações que as professoras passam a fazer sobre si a partir da frequência ao programa. A pesquisa é de natureza qualitativa. O corpus de análise é constituído pela escrita de memórias elaborada pelas docentes durante o curso e pelos depoimentos de 12 professoras egressas, obtidos por meio de entrevistas gravadas e transcritas. O referencial empírico foi o PEC Municípios/ São Paulo (2003 2004), caracterizado como um curso presencial com forte apoio de mídias interativas, que teve por finalidade oferecer a licenciatura aos docentes que tinham apenas a formação para o magistério em nível médio. O referencial teórico fundamenta-se no conceito de identidade e identidade profissional, baseados nos estudos de Dubar (2009, 2005). As questões relacionadas à profissionalização docente têm como base os estudos de Bourdoncle (2000) e, para trabalhar especificamente com a problemática da identidade docente, parte-se dos trabalhos de Lawn (2000) e Garcia et al. (2005). As análises indicam que tanto a formação quanto a prática pedagógica são imprescindíveis nesse processo de identificação com a atividade profissional e que a obtenção do título em nível superior elevou a autoestima das docentes e sua segurança para justificar suas práticas. Notamos, também, o caráter provisório e fluido da identidade, visto que muitas das docentes tiveram suas vidas profissionais marcadas pela fragmentação e incerteza e, algumas delas, ainda desejem outro campo profissional. Vale ressaltar, também, a importância da estabilidade financeira proporcionada pelo serviço público na decisão das professoras em permanecerem no magistério, área submetida a um alto nível de desprestígio, tendo em vista seus percursos marcados pela instabilidade financeira. / The work has as its object of study the issue of teacher identity. It focuses on the formative trajectory of a specific group of teachers tenured teachers from public school systems who attended a special higher education training program with the main purpose of analyzing and characterizing the process of identity development at this stage of their professional careers. It takes into account both the formative paths of this group and the context in which emerged the forces that pushed teachers to seek a higher education certificate. In this sense, the work tries to identify possible connections between obtaining a higher education certificate and the representations teachers start to make of themselves as they attend the program. The research is of a qualitative nature. The corpus of the analysis consists of the memoir writing created by the teachers during the course of the program, and of testimonies given by twelve teachers in interviews that were recorded and then transcribed. The empirical framework was the PEC-Municípios program (São Paulo, 2003-2004), described as a presence course with strong support from interactive media, which had as its goal to offer the licentiateship degree to teachers that hitherto had only a secondary school level formation. The theoretical background comes from the concept of identity, based on studies by Bauman (2005) and Dubar (2009, 2005). The questions related to teacher professionalization have as their source the works of Bourdoncle (2000), and to work specifically with the problems of teacher identity the study draws from texts by Lawn (2000) and Garcia et al. (2005). The analyses indicate that both the education and the pedagogical practice are indispensable in the process of identification with the professional activity, and that obtaining a higher education certificate enhanced the teachers self-esteem and their confidence to justify their practices. We have also observed the impermanent and fluid nature of identity, since many teachers had their professional lives marked by fragmentation and uncertainty, and some of them still contemplate other professional choices. Apart from that, the study made clear the importance that the financial security afforded by the public service had in the teachers decision to remain in this profession, a career marred by very low prestige, in view of the financial instability they faced in their life histories.

Um aspecto promissor das pesquisas mais recentes sobre formação docente é a atenção que vem sendo dirigida ao professor. Dentro desse quadro, o presente trabalho tem como especificidade o interesse em investigar a identidade de futuros professores, em um curso de formação inicial. Reconhecemos a caracterização do perfil do licenciando como importante na problemática que envolve o próprio curso, sobretudo pela intenção de contemplar, também, a dimensão sócio-cultural destes alunos. Nesse sentido, buscamos apoio e fundamentação teórica nos estudos de P. Bourdieu e nas pesquisas sobre representações sociais. Partimos da hipótese de que as representações de ciência/física/educação/perfil profissional do professor evoluem, se modificam e se articulam, no espaço de alguns anos, como parte do processo de formação inicial, resultado das interações e ações que o aluno da licenciatura vivencia. Investigar alguns elementos desse processo é o objetivo central do presente trabalho. Trata-se de um estudo de caso, envolvendo alunos do Curso de Licenciatura em Física do IFUSP, privilegiando representações do ser professor e da visão de ciência. Foram analisados, através de diferentes estratégias, três momentos do curso - o ingresso, o percurso e as condições de conclusão/evasão. Nossos resultados indicam que os ingressantes, em comparação com outras carreiras da USP, apresentam alta mobilidade educacional intergeracional e capital cultural mais limitado. Quanto às suas expectativas em relação à futura profissão, muitos não desejam exercê-la, sendo que essa fração aumenta ao longo do curso. Por outro lado, o curso tem um impacto positivo sobre os alunos, promovendo transformações de suas concepções de ciência e de suas representações sobre ser professor. Esses resultados apontam para a necessidade de promover um contínuo processo de discussão sobre a construção da identidade profissional do professor, ao longo do curso, para além do trabalho desenvolvido localmente nas disciplinas. / In recent years, more attention is being directed to teacher professional identity. In this context, we intend to investigate the identities of students during a physics teacher education university course. We consider that aspects like these must be inherent to the planning and developing of own undergraduate courses, especially considering social and culture context. With this purpose, we search for support on Bourdieu ideas and on social representation theories. To accomplish this intention, we developed a case study, taking as an object the Physics Teaching Course of the University of São Paulo. Special attention was directed to student representations about teacher profiles and their science conceptions, as well as to their expectation towards future profession practices. Three moments of the students formation were analyzed, through different approaches, including admission, trajectories and graduation (or not), searching for possible evolutions of their ideas about being teacher and studying Physics. Our results indicate that these students present very peculiar social characteristics and cultural capital baggage, as compare to other students in graduate courses at the same university. Most of them don\'t want to be teachers and their expectations toward future professional are restricted, decreasing along the advancing of the course. On the other hand, it seems clear that the course actions and design impact positively on their comprehensions about being teacher, withdrawing from technical professional profiles towards a more reflexive one. The same thing happens with science conceptions, the course promoting a more critical approach. It could be said that student identity shows a dual perspective, bounding through difficulties and successes. From these results, it came out that it must be very important that teacher identity should be explicit discussed in different times through their formation, aiming its clear and conscious course of construction along the time.

The research refers to the analysis of extension project Desafio Pré-vestibular as space for the training of teachers of natural sciences (biology, physics and chemistry), looking for understanding the discourses that challenge the teachers and has effects on your identity. To this end, we analyzed oficial documents that guide the formation of teachers, documents dealing with the Organization and functioning of the Desafio Pré-vestibular project, as well as the words and expressions of the teachers of the Sciences of nature, undergraduate students and graduates, who participated as teachers in the project in the year 2015. The survey considered theoretical and methodological presuppositions of discourse analysis in the perspective of Michel Foucault (2012, 2014), whereas the discourses as practices that produce effects on the subject, from processes of subjectivation, constituting the truths in a given time. The corpus of analysis understand documents, responses to a questionnaire and comments and demonstrations of teachers to a semi-structured interview. The analysis of the data showed that the practice is a recurrent statement in different speeches, among them, the educational, the politician of the social movements and the media, that Desafio Pré-vestibular the teachers in training and those already licensed, seeking the design challenge to perform "more" practice, producing ways of being and seeing as professor, with effects on your identity. Research shows that teachers of natural sciences (graduates and licenciandos) recognize the extension project Desafio Pré-vestibular as teacher training, space in which it is necessary to discuss and promote the articulation between theory and practice. It should be noted, however, the importance of looking at the extension locus of teaching, teacher training and research. / A pesquisa refere-se à análise do projeto de extensão Desafio Pré-vestibular como espaço para a formação de professores de Ciências da Natureza (Biologia, Física e Química), procurando compreender os discursos que interpelam os/as professores/as e tem efeitos em sua identidade docente. Para tal, foram analisados documentos oficiais que orientam a formação de professores, documentos que tratam da organização e funcionamento do projeto Desafio Pré-vestibular, bem como as falas e manifestações dos professores da área de Ciências da Natureza, licenciandos e licenciados, que participaram como docentes no projeto, no ano de 2015. A pesquisa realizada considerou pressupostos teórico-metodológicos da análise de discurso na perspectiva de Michel Foucault (2012, 2014), considerando os discursos como práticas que produzem efeitos nos sujeitos nos processos de subjetivação, constituindo as verdades em uma dada época. O corpus de análise compreendeu documentos, respostas a um questionário e comentários e manifestações dos professores a uma entrevista semi-estruturada. A análise dos dados mostrou que a formação pela prática é um enunciado recorrente em diferentes discursos, entre eles, o pedagógico, o político dos movimentos sociais e o midiático, que interpelam os professores em formação e os já licenciados, que procuram o projeto Desafio para realizar “mais” prática, produzindo modos de ser e de se ver como professor, com efeitos na sua identidade docente. A pesquisa mostra que os professores de Ciências da Natureza (licenciados e licenciandos) reconhecem o projeto de extensão Desafio Pré-vestibular como espaço de formação docente, no qual é necessário problematizar e promover a articulação entre teoria e prática. Ressalta-se, no entanto, a importância em olhar para a extensão como lócus de ensino, de formação de professores e também de pesquisa.

No presente trabalho pretendi investigar como se deu a constituição da identidade de três jovens lideranças da comunidade da favela do Real Parque/Jardim Panorama, levando em consideração os momentos de metamorfose que cada uma delas sofreu ao longo deste processo. A fim de compreender a complexidade dos aspectos envolvidos na constituição de suas identidades como futuras docentes, recorri a autores da Psicologia, Filosofia, Sociologia e História que permitissem ampliar meu olhar psicanalítico a respeito do objeto estudado. Existia nessas jovens algo de muito peculiar que contribuiu para o processo de constituição da identidade docente - uma consciência crítica aguçada. O encontro com alguns educadores, que lhes propiciou o desenvolvimento de um pensamento crítico, permitiu-lhes um olhar questionador em relação à realidade educacional encontrada nos estágios realizados em escolas municipais, por exigência de sua formação acadêmica. Por ocasião da presente pesquisa, ofereci a elas um espaço de escuta analítica, ancorada em uma concepção dialética da relação entre psique e mundo, que lhes permitisse questionar alguns aspectos relacionados à constituição da identidade docente, a ponto de metamorfosearem-se politicamente dando lugar a uma práxis transformadora, promovendo, nesse sentido, uma verdadeira educação emancipatória. Finalmente, terminei este trabalho com a descrição da revelação da práxis dessas jovens, que se deu em meio à liderança que exerceram espontaneamente junto à comunidade do Real Parque, impedindo a desapropriação de parte da favela em que moram, ocorrida no final de 2007. / In this present work, I intended to do a research on how the identity of three young leaders of Real Parque/Jardim Panorama shantytown was constituted, and also taking into consideration the changing that each one of them suffered along the process of investigation. In order to understand the complexity of the aspects involved in the constitution of their identities as future teachers, I looked for authors of Psychology, Philosophy, Sociology and History that allowed me to expand my psychoanalytic vision concerning the object of study. There was something very special with these youngsters that contributed to the process of constitution of their teaching identity - a critical sharpened consciousness. The meeting with some educators, which provided them a critical analysis, allowed them to question the real educational system found in municipal schools due to probations required in academic graduation. At the time of this research, I offered them a space of analytical listening, based on a dialectical concept of the connection between psyche and the world, which could allow them to question some aspects related to the constitution of the teaching identity, that was about to metamorphose them politically, giving place to a changing praxis and promoting, in this sense, a real emancipate education. Finally, I finished this work with the description of the disclosure of the praxis of these youngsters, which happened within their spontaneous leadership taken over inside Real Parque community, avoiding the dispossession of part of the slum where they live in the end of 2007.

Um aspecto promissor das pesquisas mais recentes sobre formação docente é a atenção que vem sendo dirigida ao professor. Dentro desse quadro, o presente trabalho tem como especificidade o interesse em investigar a identidade de futuros professores, em um curso de formação inicial. Reconhecemos a caracterização do perfil do licenciando como importante na problemática que envolve o próprio curso, sobretudo pela intenção de contemplar, também, a dimensão sócio-cultural destes alunos. Nesse sentido, buscamos apoio e fundamentação teórica nos estudos de P. Bourdieu e nas pesquisas sobre representações sociais. Partimos da hipótese de que as representações de ciência/física/educação/perfil profissional do professor evoluem, se modificam e se articulam, no espaço de alguns anos, como parte do processo de formação inicial, resultado das interações e ações que o aluno da licenciatura vivencia. Investigar alguns elementos desse processo é o objetivo central do presente trabalho. Trata-se de um estudo de caso, envolvendo alunos do Curso de Licenciatura em Física do IFUSP, privilegiando representações do ser professor e da visão de ciência. Foram analisados, através de diferentes estratégias, três momentos do curso - o ingresso, o percurso e as condições de conclusão/evasão. Nossos resultados indicam que os ingressantes, em comparação com outras carreiras da USP, apresentam alta mobilidade educacional intergeracional e capital cultural mais limitado. Quanto às suas expectativas em relação à futura profissão, muitos não desejam exercê-la, sendo que essa fração aumenta ao longo do curso. Por outro lado, o curso tem um impacto positivo sobre os alunos, promovendo transformações de suas concepções de ciência e de suas representações sobre ser professor. Esses resultados apontam para a necessidade de promover um contínuo processo de discussão sobre a construção da identidade profissional do professor, ao longo do curso, para além do trabalho desenvolvido localmente nas disciplinas. / In recent years, more attention is being directed to teacher professional identity. In this context, we intend to investigate the identities of students during a physics teacher education university course. We consider that aspects like these must be inherent to the planning and developing of own undergraduate courses, especially considering social and culture context. With this purpose, we search for support on Bourdieu ideas and on social representation theories. To accomplish this intention, we developed a case study, taking as an object the Physics Teaching Course of the University of São Paulo. Special attention was directed to student representations about teacher profiles and their science conceptions, as well as to their expectation towards future profession practices. Three moments of the students formation were analyzed, through different approaches, including admission, trajectories and graduation (or not), searching for possible evolutions of their ideas about being teacher and studying Physics. Our results indicate that these students present very peculiar social characteristics and cultural capital baggage, as compare to other students in graduate courses at the same university. Most of them don\'t want to be teachers and their expectations toward future professional are restricted, decreasing along the advancing of the course. On the other hand, it seems clear that the course actions and design impact positively on their comprehensions about being teacher, withdrawing from technical professional profiles towards a more reflexive one. The same thing happens with science conceptions, the course promoting a more critical approach. It could be said that student identity shows a dual perspective, bounding through difficulties and successes. From these results, it came out that it must be very important that teacher identity should be explicit discussed in different times through their formation, aiming its clear and conscious course of construction along the time.