PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE JOB MARKET: WHAT SORT OF TEACHERS ARE UNIVERSITIES WILLING TO DEVELOP?

Abstract

We try to verify and analyze what sort of professional teacher and the profile of teacher the Initial Teacher's Development Courses, Teaching Degree, in a variety of field where this professional will perform, in all basic school level, the universities are developing. For this purpose, we have emphasized the recent reforms that have been done in the discourse related to this development, in Brazilian official documents concerning this issue and approach, as well as the considerations designed by some experts/researchers regarding the paths and tendencies present in teachers´ development. We can clearly notice right away the swift from a concept of developing reflective teachers to a more technical-training approach, which revolves around the famous competences that teachers are expected to develop. Finally, we tried to identify which implications are behind when one concept is favored over the other one in teachers´ development, and the contributions of each concept in the process of professional development, in the face of strong and influential (neo)positivist and (neo)liberal educational and curriculum discourse.