Formación inicial docente y políticas de estandarización: análisis de cuatro propuestas formativas en Chile Translated title: Initial teacher education and standard policies: an analysis of four training proposals in Chile

Abstract

Resumen En Chile, la Formación Inicial Docente (FID) ha estado impactada por políticas públicas que paulatinamente se han focalizado en la estandarización de los procesos educativos en las universidades. A través de un estudio de casos múltiple en cuatro carreras de Educación General Básica del país (norte grande, norte chico, centro y sur), se analizó la propuesta formativa de cada universidad en el contexto de políticas estandarizadas con altas consecuencias. El análisis de contenido mostró un rol prescriptivo de las políticas, especialmente de la acreditación obligatoria de las carreras, y del impacto de los estándares orientadores para la FID, que se aprecia con claridad en las asignaturas de práctica. Sin embargo, también aparecen significados y experiencias contextualmente situadas que buscan desarrollar el pensamiento crítico del estudiantado. Los resultados se discuten en torno a los riesgos de estas políticas de invisibilizar los factores socioculturales en la FID.

Translated abstract

Abstract: Initial teacher education policies in Chile in recent years, despite having provided certain instruments and support strategies for training centres, have had a clear focus on establishing high pressures on teacher education, regulating training standards and putting pressure on higher education institutions to achieve them. This context is described as a situation with high consequences for higher education institutions, as it can have major repercussions in terms of finances and management autonomy in the event that accreditation of teacher education curricula is not achieved. In response to this system, Chilean higher education institutions have implemented rigorous internal processes, including regular evaluations, curriculum adjustments and internships. However, these types of policies have also led to a strong privatisation and decentralisation of educational management, which has generated processes of homogenisation of teaching that do not necessarily guarantee learning. Likewise, this type of orientation in teacher training has been associated with the production of a technified and over-intensified teacher identity, which has an impact on the professional and employment trajectories that teachers decide to follow at the end of their formal studies. However, few studies examine the identities that are evident in standardised initial teacher education. Some studies show that student teachers tend to value the learning received in their training, despite being unaware that their training is subject to standards. Moreover, territorial diversity and the internal standardisation procedures of higher education institutions themselves generate a wide variety of initial teacher training proposals, with different models of professionalisation and ethical values. In this context, this article investigates the pedagogical training proposals constructed in a context of standardised policies with high consequences in four public universities in the country. A multiple case study of four General Basic Education degrees was developed. The training proposal was operationalised as a set of documentary provisions that make up the curriculum, its foundations, its link with the policy and the meanings constructed by those responsible for its management. The cases were selected by purposive sampling, seeking criteria of diversity -geographical-, and similarity by contrast -public universities, more than 30 years old, accredited, and with at least Language and Mathematics majors-. Intra- and inter-case analyses were carried out. The general results indicate that public policy seems to be prescribed as a demand, requirement and expectation to be fulfilled, which generates tensions and pressures in the formative proposals of the cases. The practice subject - observational, intermediate and professional - tends to be seen as the starting point for the exercise of policy, despite the fact that a wide variety of positions and meanings around it are evident. In this context, all four cases suggest a coherence and connection between initial teacher education and professional development. Although the approaches and emphases of training are diverse, some are more focused on the territorial scope and its evolution, others on critical training and some on training about practice. The repercussions of this plurality of proposals in a context of initial teacher training that is prescribed as standardised are discussed.