Social trajectory, habitus and commitment at school work

Abstract

In this article we present research results about the organization of the pedagogical work in school focusing on the figure of the administrator, aiming to analyze how a principal and a pedagogical coordinator, in two schools, understand and execute their work, establishing relations with the other administrative team members, with the Education Office, school employees, teachers, parents and students, from habitus dispositions for the action. We investigated the causes of the differences present in the administrators’ performance. For this reason, we mobilize the concepts of habitus and legitimate domination. Semistructured interviews were conducted in two municipal schools of Primary Education, chosen because of their positive recognition by the community. In the interviews, data was collected concerning the subjects’ values and beliefs, framed in their social trajectories and in the educational field. After the analysis, two forms of administrative conduction were evidenced: one marked by more technical rationality, and the other by a certain confrontation to this form of work. The bureaucratic domination was manifested either with traces of traditional domination or charismatic domination, in the relation with different forms of capital. To investigate the pedagogical work relating it to the subjects’ beliefs and values, finding a path of expression in the educ