A docência universitária como estratégia de ascensão: um estudo com a Faculdade de Formação de Professores da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

The university is a social institution historically embedded in relations of power which have varied temporal mutations that perpetuate until the present. The professor is a central figure in the articulation of these relationships, the holder of knowledge-power, the master of scientific research and tutor of the academic ranks since its existence. In this configuration, the process of teacher education for professors was set traditionally in the field of cognitive contents and scientific improvement, with disregard for pedagogical-didactic preparation. However, the last decades have shown the near-organic mutability of power and its manifestations, unveiling a new world order that transmuted social structures, including public universities. According to Boaventura da Sousa Santos, the university now faces three fundamental crises that threaten - or have already accomplished - loss and/or reduction of its hegemony, legitimacy and institutionalism, in favor of a globalized economic-policy conjuncture and driven above all by the free hand of the market. The professor rises again at the epicenter of this transformation, making it necessary to raise questions about his/her place in the university and trying to understand it in the relations of power, specifically on university teaching as a way to social mobility in the current context of crisis in the university. Using a critical-dialectical approach, the research of this exploratory study was aimed to the professors of the Faculdade de Formação de Professores da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FFP / UERJ), for which were specifically designed and applied a questionnaire and a survey via e-mail to address the issue of this research: the university teaching as social mobility strategy in the modern university. CThe praxiology of Pierre Bourdieu, apart from representing the great inspiration for this work, provided the theoretical background and necessary hermeneutic referential for the interpretation of the productions. In the end, conclusions were drawn on the impact of neoliberal policies towards the teaching and university management, on the recognition of social mobility processes throughout the teachers lifes, and the importance, for analysis purposes, of taking into account the particular characteristics of the institution to which they belong, specifically its objective rank in the specific hierarchy of colleges.