Family and School Motivation: Challenges for the pre-service teacher training

Abstract

This article aims to explore pre-service teachers’ representations of the role of family in school motivation and the challenges that these results impose on teacher training. The research, of a qualitative nature, was carried through conducting three discussion groups (n = 24) in public and private universities in the V and VII regions of Chile. The results show a polysemy in the “motivation” construct, whose meaning depends on the subject that motivates; referring to the ability to give meaning to the school experience if the family is the one who motivates the child, and the ability to entertain, if the teacher is who motivates. The implications that this dichotomy could bring to educational action in the school context are discussed.