The Act of Participating or Not: Institutional, Personal Discourses and Teacher Development
Abstract
This study investigated how a small group of part-time, non-tenured language teachers, at a public university in central Mexico, responded to the opportunity of publishing their first research article. Based upon a qualitative study we explore the teachers’ discourses and the institution’s to understand the teachers’ positions towards this research project and how these teachers see their future teacher development within a specific context they share. The purpose of the project was to encourage nontenured teachers who, within the institution, have limited opportunities and financial support to develop as researchers. The latter is based on the reality that throughout Mexico as well as other parts of the world and within many disciplines, academic publishing is a strategy used to measure professional development among university teachers. Findings suggest that carrying out research and publishing are not participants’ first priorities despite their interest in gaining tenure.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/5025
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