Teaching trajectories and high stakes accountability: chilean teachers’ stories

Abstract

Teaching career has been configured through various educational reforms by international organizations. These influenced in Latin America in the promotion of professional teacher development from the logic of individual merit, and in Chile in a model of accountability promoted by neoliberal social policies. In this scenario, the research objective was to describe how the professional trajectories of 15 Chilean teachers are configured, in the sociopolitical context of the current teaching career. The methodology was qualitative with a biographical approach, through individual-narrative interviews. The design, a case study made up of 5 teachers, forming 3 qualifying groups for the teaching career (Initial, Intermediate, Advanced). Among the main conclusions, a narrative of the vocational motivation stands out when entering to study pedagogy, the fear of professional burnout, the abandonment of the teaching career and the questioning of the standardization of teaching work, by promoting a logic of technification of the pedagogical task.