The Construction of Knowledge and Teachers' Professional Identities in the Context of Globalization

Fernando Manuel Ferreira Rodrigues Silva^1,

¹Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Education and Development (CEIED), Lusofona University of Humanities and Technologies, Lisbon, Portugal

Cite this paper:
Fernando Manuel Ferreira Rodrigues Silva. The Construction of Knowledge and Teachers' Professional Identities in the Context of Globalization. American Journal of Educational Research. 2016; 4(10):741-748. doi: 10.12691/education-4-10-6

Abstract

This article aims to analyze new ways of building teachers' identities, marked by the globalization process and its impact on education, considering the place occupied by ‘knowledges’, due to the occurrence of some uneasiness regarding current educational policies. In the collection of data, in a geographical area named 'Oporto', a methodological approach of mixed character was used by applying a questionnaire to secondary school teachers of Economics and Accounting as well as semi-directive interviews to key informants of the professional and educational field. The analysis of the questionnaire data shows that the identity configurations vary by sex, basic training, length of service (age) and type of professional insertion. The analysis of the interviews, in turn, reveals that the personal training of teachers is a key issue for education and for the educational system, and the participants identified ways of building new identity configurations.

Keywords:
educational globalization professional knowledge construction of professional identities teachers’ burnout secondary education

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