Atividades acadêmicas de professores universitários : um estudo em representações sociais

Abstract

This study is about an investigation with interfaces in the areas of Education and Social Psychology. It takes as theoretical support the Theory of the Social Representations of Serge Moscovici (1978), complemented by the structural approach of Jean-Claude Abric (1998). It aims to find out the structure and content of the social representations (SR) concerning to academic activities, focusing the teaching activity, as described by professors of the campus of Cuiabá in the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). The data were collected by using the word free association technique. The universe of participants was constituted by 883 professors, from both genders, distributed in 15 academic units. The sample was composed by 450 of them, who answered to five inductive terms/questions: 1) What does it mean to be professor of UFMT; 2) How does society perceive the professor of UFMT; 3) How teaching activity is perceived by the professors of UFMT; 4) How is the relationship among the professors of UFMT; 5) How is the relationship among teachers and students of UFMT; The data collected were processed by the softwares EVOC and SPSS. The question What does it mean to be professor of the UFMT? was used to establish a comparative analysis with results found in the research of Paredes et al. (2000; 2001), developed in the same university and having identical research objetct. The data from previous research, named as Study A, and those ones from present research, named Study B, revealed that to be professor of UFMT, is to present characteristics as devotion, responsibility, commitment and knowledge to describe the practicing of the profession. However, appear as a new element, difficulties, pointing to concern by the most part of investigated people. This points to social representations related with a feeling of uneasiness. Regarding the second question, according to investigated group, the society perceives the professors of UFMT as professional who are respected, rewarded and having prestigious, due to the fact they belong to the staff of the institution. Concerning teaching activity, appeared words such as fundamental, up to date, formation-citizen, social commitment, and learning. The relationships, among the professors, are perceived by most of them, as having positive aspects as: friendship, fellowship, respect, contribution, exchanges, professional and group relationships. Regarding to relationships among professors and students, appear the same dimensions presenting positive feelings, by the attributes as friendship, affection, exchanges, cooperation, trust, respect, dialogue and responsibilities showing well being feeling states. Based on these results we can indicate that the SR founded can be classified as emancipated, by the presence of sub-groups of professors who keep narrow bonds among them, creating their own shared versions about the same object. However, it was also noticed the presence of hegemonic SR related to the teaching activity, since the attribute fundamental seems to be rooted in the group of professors.