On teaching as a cultural practice: categories to study teachers’ work

Abstract

The article presents theoretical-methodological arguments to consider teaching as a cultural practice, which grants materiality to the senses shared by teachers within the teaching scope, understood as a space of production, circulation, and updating perceptions about the elements that comprise the school scenario. The discussion is undertaken through a literature review, considering the praxeology proposed by Pierre Bourdieu as a conceptual framework, and the studies connected to the cultural history of pedagogic knowledge, from which we can grasp the assumption of a teaching culture. It presents analytical resources to study teachers’ work, with implications for its investigation, as well as for the profession and teacher education. In the first section, the article discusses the interest in educational studies to consider teaching as practices through which teachers’ cultural manifestations present themselves. In the second section, the theme is explored through the Bourdiesian praxeology and three characteristics are emphasized that we assume as being typical of the cultural practice of teaching. To conclude, the third section discusses the implications of this way of considering teachers’ practice regarding investigation. We also present some considerations regarding the effects of the perspective explored here on the profession and teacher formation.