Teacher education and the teaching profession in Brazil, Spain, and Portugal: Memories, policies, and teaching practices
Rev. Educação e Fronteiras, Dourados, v. 12, n. esp. 1, e023008, 2022. e-ISSN:2237-258X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30612/eduf.v12in.esp.1.17106 2
The present dossier, entitled "Teacher education and the teaching profession in
Brazil, Spain, and Portugal: Memories, policies, and teaching practices," aims to share
studies and research on the profession and education of teachers, addressing their policies,
educational practices, and memories related to the paths of teacher education and
professionalization in Primary Teaching Schools in Portugal (Coimbra), Normal Schools and
Institutes of Education in Brazil and Ecuador, focused on the education and training of teachers
for so-called "primary" or elementary education and first letters. In Brazil, Normal Schools
emerged from the need to train female teachers to work in Group Schools, established at the
beginning of the Republican period (during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century) to
modernize the education system and Brazilian schools. In this context, isolated and multigrade
schools prevailed, where classes were taught by lay teachers, also known as
schoolmasters/schoolmistresses.
The presented articles aim to contribute to constructing the history and historiography
of education in different social spaces in Ecuador, Portugal, and Brazil. Furthermore, they seek
to promote the exchange of research findings, theses, dissertations, monographs, experiences,
and other works (such as articles, texts, and reviews) on teacher education in both countries.
The purpose is also to establish interfaces and identities between these formative processes in
the two countries, expanding discussions on the points of convergence between government
policies and teacher education, as well as their teaching practices. Moreover, the goal is to
consolidate knowledge about the school, its practices, and knowledge, as well as the different
versions of the history of education in the three countries, including Brazil and Portugal, as is
the case with schools and group schools.
To open the dossier, researchers Mercedes Blanchard, Mayra Palma, and David
Lanza presented a paper entitled “What methodological paradigm guided the work of
teachers in the classroom? An exploratory study in higher education”. Their objective was
to investigate to what extent a group of professors from the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and
Education Sciences of a Public University in Ecuador incorporated methodological changes in
their discourse and classroom practice. The authors conducted a qualitative study using
communicative history as a research tool. They examined the responses of 25 university
professors. According to the researchers, the results suggest that most teachers used expressions
related to the learning paradigm. However, they emphasize the need for a specific investigation,
with direct observation, to assess the extent to which these changes have become a reality in
classroom practice.