Encounters and (re)encounters with teachers' images: a reasoning analysis

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the social representations made by a group of educators about being a teacher.  The premise which guides this study is that our beliefs and values are consolidated in the discursive practices we take part in. Therefore, these representations are presented and updated according to our life stories and individual experiences through interaction. Responses from interviews were recorded for this study, which were then analysed in order to capture the movements of these representations. The direction proposed for this study aims mainly at a linguistic-textual-discursive analysis, whose epistemological bases underlie approaches by Foucault (1986), Pêcheux (1988), Authier-Revuz (1995) and Bronckart (1999).. Of an explanatory and interpretative nature and with a qualitative approach, this investigation helps us to realise how discourse may reveal representations, guided by collective, individual, and constitutive actions in the construction process of a teaching professional’s image. The examples discussed reveal that the forms that the educators express themselves and project images and meanings are anchored in a discursive memory and these are reflected in models prepared and shared by teachers, who are currently giving a new meaning to their roles, positions and representations in relation to being a teacher and teaching.