Mapeando a identidade profissional de licenciandos em ciências biológicas: um estudo ator-rede a partir do programa institucional de bolsa de iniciação à docência

Abstract

This is an Actor-Network Study on the controversy involving the professional identity of teacher undergraduates in Biological Sciences from a public university in southeastern Brazil. Referenced in Actor-Network Theory and controversy mapping, we have mapped the actors involved in the formative experiences of these students and the composition of interests regarding their teaching identity network. The formative experience that we have chosen to track was the Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação à Docência (PIBID). Initially we conducted a survey with teacher undergraduates in the Biological Sciences course of that University, in order to map out their profile and identify whether their professional expectations have changed along the course. We use the latourian concept of translation to describe the detours or associations made by actors in strengthening or weakening the teacher identity. We detected the formation of a few associations in favor of teacher identity and various detours during the initial training trajectory of the students, culminating in the construction of a teaching counter-identity network. Further, we led two focus groups, the first one with non-PIBIDians and the other one with PIBIDians, in order to identify on a comparative basis, which of the actors, during the academic career, acted toward strengthening the teaching identity of the students. The results point out that the teaching course performs more detours than associations concerning the professional teaching identity of the students, while the PIBID performs several associations in favor of this identity. Based on the performance concept, we argue that, in general, non-PIBIDians perform an identity-institution that emerges from the course, encouraging them to become biologists and biology teachers. On the other hand, PIBIDians generally perform an identity-affinity, emerging from the PIBID, in their sense of belonging to a collaborative work group. However, as the program only involves part of the students, we question the need to extend the network of these associations to all teacher students. Additionally, we defend the use of Actor-Network Theory and controversy mapping as a methodology to map complex issues and plot new world scenarios.