Education policies and teachers' professional development: the perceptions of elementary school teachers

Abstract

This paper is part of ongoing research undertaken for a PhD thesis in Education Sciences, specialty of Curriculum Development. The objective is to understand the impact of recent legislation – Teaching Career Statute (TCS) and its respective Evaluation of Teacher Performance (ETP) – with particular emphasis on the (re)construction of the identity, career and professional development of teachers. In this context we were able to formulate these research questions: do the government‟s education policies encourage teacher development? Will opportunities for teacher development be created in schools? Will the goal of improving the quality of teaching be achieved in education contexts sustained by teaching malaise? In this paper we shall explain the perceptions of elementary school teachers recounted in written and oral biographical narratives and in three discussion groups set up for the purpose. In addition we present some of the results yielded by responses to a questionnaire sent out to 396 elementary school teachers and their statistical analysis using the chi-square test and t-test. The professional experiences recounted by the teachers suggest outcomes different from those foreseen by Portugal‟s policymakers, emphasising the weaknesses and inapplicability of the core objectives established in the legislation on the Portuguese system.