Teaching career's attraction and rejection factors: Analysis of students and graduates perceptions in teacher education programs

Abstract

This article presents part of the results of a research project aimed at analyzing factors of attraction and rejection associated to a teaching career as perceived by a cohort of undergraduate, finalist and graduate students of the teaching degree courses in Pedagogy and Mathematics of a private higher education institution in the Federal District. This project administered questionnaires and conducted focal group sessions and individual interviews. Thematic Analysis of Content was used for data analysis. The results show that some of the factors of attraction associated to a teaching career are those intrinsic to the profession (emotional gratification, reciprocal learning), while the factors of rejection are mostly extrinsic, such as financial rewards, social devaluation, work overload, violence in schools, teacher malaise and others. The paper concludes that, in spite of offering low salaries, teaching is an attractive career for candidates socially, economically and culturally less well off.