Teachers’ Social Representations Concerning the Project for Career in Professional Teaching in Chile. Structural Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The socio-political processes in education affect the teaching profession. The objective of the article is to analyze the social representations of teachers and other relevant actors in relation to the Project of Professional Teacher Development Law. The methodological strategy was the structural analysis of the discourse published between March and June 2015. The findings reveal social representations that demand greater participation in the construction of the project; challenge the accountability-based approach to teacher assessment; argue that the project will intensify the dismissal, deprofessionalization and impoverishment of working conditions and believe that it is necessary to regulate the initial and continuous training of teachers. In sum, teachers reject the initiative as non-representative, based on mistrust and validating a punitive evaluation system that makes them invisible as a relevant actor in the design of the aforementioned bill.