Science Teacher Identity and Professional Development as a Gender Issue: Natália Flores’ Case

Abstract

Gender issues are usually neglected in research on Science teacher education. This paper presents a narrative inquiry inspired on sociological portraits, into Natália Flores' life story, a preservice teacher who has survived the quest for excellence that challenges most Science students. Drawing on information from individual interviews, feminist theories and the distinction between connected and separated knowledge, we argue that Natália’s professional identity falls into the normative tension of being a woman and living in a Physics Institute in a Brazilian Federal University. During Natália’s childhood, relationships were settled by intimacy and sensibility, and she developed what we will name a disposition to connectedness. Through this disposition, her choices and dilemmas can be read as gender issues. Her choice to become a Physics teacher; her struggle to adapt to the University; her low self-efficacy and the meanings she ascribed to ‘being a teacher’ are all affected by the way Natália learned to be a woman. On the other hand, given that class issues also shape her story, we expect some men to identify with some of her experiences as well. Implications for thinking Science teachers’ professional development as gendered are further discussed.

Keywords

• desenvolvimento profissional
• identidade
• formação de professores
• gênero
• educação científica