El trabajo docente en la universidad: Condiciones, dimensiones y tensiones

Abstract

The current article addresses the issue of university teaching activity from an interpretative perspective. This collective case study stems from semi-structured interviews with 69 professors at two universities in Argentina and one in Spain. The analysis is focused on different aspects that make university teaching activity a complex, heterogeneous and specific practice that is experienced and perceived differently by professors given their particular positions within the university. This analysis allows for an appreciation of the diversity and multiplicity of activities-prescribed and real, substantial and strategic-that teaching activity at a university level demands, the variety of symbolic and material conditions under which this activity takes place, and the tensions it faces. The author suggests that very varied experiences, vested in an apparent uniformity of demands and conditions, co-exist under the single category of "teaching activity.