TITLE:
Partnership in Teacher Education: A Theoretical and Practical Analysis
AUTHORS:
Erineu Foerste, Alberto Merler, Andrea Vargiu
KEYWORDS:
Partnership, Teacher Education, University, School, Theory and Practice
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.8 No.8,
July
13,
2017
ABSTRACT:
The aim of this study is to discuss theoretical and practical issues of the partnership
in teacher education. A brief background of the debate in the last years
is presented, questions about the partnership concept are introduced, the experience
of the Brazilian university performing the inter-institutional work is analyzed
and an overview is given of how the issue has been addressed in Québec.
The current study seeks to note controversies and possible achievements of
teachers in their struggles for the greater social approbation of the teaching profession.
The research process benefited from documentary analysis, on-site observations
and interviews; the last ones carried out in Brazil. The concept of
partnership shows ambiguity. On the one hand, it is a strong ally for the implementation
of official educational reforms, which puts it in scene between universities
and schools. On the other hand, as a collaborative practice between the
researchers and the school teachers, it helps to create new theoretical and practical
basis for the initial and extended formation of the teaching professionals, in
which academic knowledge and experience are articulated. In the case here
analyzed, in the Brazilian scenario, the partnership helps to introduce innovations
through institutional arrangements with other rationality, by which teachers
are valued as collaborators in the processes of teacher training. Thus, we can
affirm that the partnership is a relatively recent practice in the field of education,
which involves tensions between official interests; and objectives of both
collaborative work and collective struggles for the appreciation of the teaching
profession of researchers at universities and teachers at schools.