Fifty years of teaching: factors of change and intergenerational dialogues

In this project, it is considered that the Portuguese teachers and educational system during the last five decades are an important case study with international relevance for theelucidation of the endogenous and exogenous factors of educational innovation and the recovery of intergenerational dialogue. Education was a central axis of development in thelast 50 years and teachers were essential in this historical trajectory, along which they took firm steps in affirming their professionalism [1]. Those who started teaching in the1970s, who are now nearing the end of their careers, carry with them the actual history of an educational system's evolution and of its adventures; they remember innovations andreforms; they know the school, its transformation and inertia; they know children and young people in their different generations; they have inside knowledge on both theopportunities and difficulties to improve. All this wealth in experienced knowledge [2] can be a crucial contribution to the study of teachers and educational change (social, curricularand political) [3]. On the other hand, the aging of the teaching staff, associated to the absence of its renewal and the loss of attractiveness of the profession [4], has hinderedinteractions between generations of teachers [5]. The fact that over the next 10 years about 50% of the teachers will retire [4] increases the need to deepen intergenerationaldialogues in teaching. Informed by the development of teachers' professionalism and by the valorisation of the teaching profession [6] [7] [8], the project has the general objectiveof creating research results and devices that account for teachers' stories and their crucial variables towards innovation and that promote the dialogue between old and new teachersand society. The specific objectives of the project are: produce “life narratives” that account for key analytical dimensions of the transformations in teachers' daily lives across thelast decades, identifying crucial factors of innovation; promote intergenerational dialogue when training teachers of different levels of education and assess its effects; producemultimodal digital versions of exemplary life narratives and intergenerational dialogues, and to make them accessible for research, training and communicating with society throughan open repository. Grounded on this background of social, political and educational changes over the last decades [1], of the currently aging teaching staff [4] and of thepossibilities to understand daily historical processes, training and communication with society [2] opened up by biographical research, the study has three theoretical lines of inquiry:-The construction of teachers' professionalism and educational innovation; -The rejuvenation of the teaching staff and intergenerational dialogue; -Biographical-narrative researchand the creation of an open repository of narratives and formative experiences [9] [10]. The project is developed in three fundamental stages: Collection and analysis of life storiesof teachers who started their careers in the 1970s (taking into account gender and regional inclusion); Development and evaluation of training projects inspired by action researchthat promote intergenerational dialogue; Creation of an open repository to be constituted by prototypes of the stories and formative experiences selected according to fundamentalaxes that emerge from the analysis. In addition to the coordination and dissemination tasks, the study consists of 9 other tasks, which, in some moments, coincide, but that refers tothe steps described above. Stage 1 lasts for 16 months and is organized in two parts: one of preparation (T2 Launch; T3 Literature Review; T4 Team workshop on biographical-narrative methodology) and another of collecting and analysing life stories (T5 and T6). Stage 2 last for 9 months and is constituted by the implementation (T7), development (T8)and evaluation of intergenerational training processes (T9). Stage 3 corresponds to T10, which comprises 3 axes: study of existing repositories, storage and data management;creation of content from the data to be produced in the tasks; and creating, making available and launching an open Repository of training and teaching stories. PI has a vastexperience in coordinating, conducting and supervising research and is a national and international reference in the study of teachers, professionalism and of the biographical-narrative research. The team is made up of highly qualified researchers and is organized into three subteams: the FYT team, responsible for collecting and analysing life stories, the ID team, responsible for implementing intergenerational dialogues; and the OP team composed by elements with expertise in the construction of conventional and digital databases.The consultants - António Nóvoa and Linda Evans - are major references in the fields of teachers' professionalization and of biographical-narrative training/research.