POLITICAL, CONTEXTUAL AND KNOWLEDGE DIMENSIONS OF TEACHER EDUCATION: A PERSPECTIVE IN THE LIGHT OF BAKHTINIAN THOUGHT

ABSTRACT:

Based on Bakhtinian thought, we developed dimensions of a perspective of counter-hegemonic training of Science teachers. This training perspective, which we call “dialogical-responsible teacher education,” consists of seven dimensions - practical, ethics, aesthetics, investigative, political, contextual, and knowledge. The last three will be developed in this paper. The development of these dimensions was built up from the collating of Bakhtinian Circle texts with texts from the literature on teacher education, tensions, and contrasts, showing insufficiencies and proposing advances concerning the hegemonic training model guided by technical rationality. In this process, formative dimensions emerged that distanced from a prescriptive profile, are constituted as principles that allow rethinking, transforming, giving directions, and structuring formations that break with the hegemonic perspective. We argue that our dimensions make it possible to resignify teacher education regarding the broad understanding of reality, criticality, teaching autonomy, organicity of training processes, and dialogicity in constructing knowledge.

Keywords:
Bakhtin Circle; teacher education; dialogical-responsible education

RESUMO:

A partir do pensamento bakhtiniano, construímos dimensões de uma perspectiva de formação contra-hegemônica de professores de Ciências da Natureza. Essa perspectiva formativa, que denominamos por “formação dialógica-responsável de professores”, é constituída de sete dimensões - práxica, ética, estética, investigativa, política, contextual e do conhecimento, das quais as três últimas serão desenvolvidas no presente trabalho. A construção dessas dimensões foi desenvolvida a partir do cotejamento de textos do Círculo bakhtiniano com textos da literatura de formação docente, estabelecendo tensionamentos, contraposições, mostrando insuficiências e propondo avanços em relação ao modelo formativo hegemônico, fundamentado na racionalidade técnica. Nesse processo, emergiram dimensões formativas que, distanciadas de um perfil prescritivo, se constituem como princípios que permitem repensar, transformar, dar encaminhamentos, estruturar formações que rompam com a perspectiva hegemônica. Defendemos que nossas dimensões possibilitam ressignificar a formação docente no que diz respeito à compreensão ampla da realidade, criticidade, autonomia docente, organicidade dos processos formativos e dialogicidade na construção do conhecimento.

Palavras-chave:
Círculo de Bakhtin; formação de professores; formação dialógica-responsável

RESUMEN:

Con base en el pensamiento bajtiniano, desarrollamos dimensiones de una perspectiva de formación contrahegemónica de profesores de Ciencias Naturales. Esta perspectiva formativa, que llamamos “formación dialógico-responsable de profesores”, consta de siete dimensiones: praxica, ética, estética, investigativa, política, contextual, y conocimiento, de las cuales las tres ultimas serán desarrolladas en el presente artículo. La construcción de estas dimensiones se llevó a cabo a partir del cotejo de textos del Círculo Bajtiniano con textos de la literatura sobre la formación del profesorado, estableciendo tensiones, contrastes, mostrando insuficiencias y proponiendo avances en relación al modelo de formación hegemónico, dirigido por la racionalidad técnica. En este proceso emergieron dimensiones formativas que, alejadas de un perfil prescriptivo, se constituyen como principios que permiten repensar, transformar, estructurar formaciones que rompan con la perspectiva hegemónica. Sostenemos que nuestras dimensiones permiten resignificar la formación del profesorado en lo referente a la comprensión amplia de la realidad, la criticidad, la autonomía docente, la organicidad de los procesos formativos y la dialogicidad en la construcción del conocimiento.

Palabras clave:
Circulo de Bajtín; formación del profesorado; formación dialógico-responsable

INTRODUCTION

Teacher training models have been discussed by research in Science Education, in order to propose alternatives to the perspective of technical rationality (Contreras, 2012), rooted in training processes, understood as a hegemonic model of training (Pereira-Diniz & Zeichner, 2017; Coimbra, 2020).

The basic idea of the technical rationality model is that professional practice consists of the instrumental solution of problems by applying theoretical and technical knowledge, previously available, which comes from scientific research. It is instrumental because it involves applying techniques and procedures justified by their ability to achieve the desired effects or results (Contreras, 2012, p. 101).

Therefore, as we have defended (Deconto, 2020; Deconto & Ostermann, 2021a), the Bakhtinian thought¹ can be seen as a worldview that allows opposing the hegemonic formative model, enabling the proposition of a counter-hegemonic formation of science teachers. It is characterized as counter-hegemonic, in this perspective, a (re)construction from the critical analysis of the insufficiencies of the hegemonic model.

Thus, in this work, of theoretical nature, we aim to discuss some dimensions of a perspective on counter-hegemonic teacher training built from Bakhtinian thought. In this construction process, dimensions (praxis, ethics, aesthetics, politics, contextual and institutional, knowledge and investigative) emerged from this theoretical framework, constitutive of what we call “dialogical-responsible teacher education” (Deconto, 2020).

In previous work (Deconto & Ostermann, 2021a), we justified the counter-hegemonic character. We discussed dimensions of dialogical-responsible training related to the notion of the responsible act (praxis, ethics, and aesthetics), and, at this moment, we dedicate ourselves to discussing dimensions related to the notion of language (political, contextual, and knowledge), which has dialogism as its constitutive principle. Thus, the dimensions treated in this paper were not chosen randomly. As will be explicit in the following sections, they derive directly from the circle’s conception of language (and, consequently, dialogism).

Thus, in this article, completing the discussion of the characteristic dimensions of the perspective of dialogical-responsible training of science teachers, we develop the political, knowledge, and contextual dimensions - through the intersection between the knowledge of teacher training and Bakhtinian thought. It is necessary to clarify that the circle did not deal with teacher training, which gives the theoretical construction developed in this research a high degree of originality. Moreover, pointing to the originality of the work is the finding of Deconto and Ostermann (2020), from a review of literature in the area of “Science Education,” that research aimed at thinking about teacher training from Bakhtinian thought is scarce, so most of the production does not explicitly focus on teacher education in the terms we propose, using it more as a backdrop for the investigation of other topics (for example, appropriation of official documents, understanding of educational perspectives, construction of consensus on Modern and Contemporary Physics), although related to teacher education.

The intersection between theoretical contributions (teacher training and Bakhtinian thought) that we establish in this work is structured by the methodological principle used in some writings of the Bakhtinian Circle: the collation (Geraldi, 2012). Collate, in this perspective, means to give context to a text, to put it in contact with another text (Bakhtin, 2011). This dialogic contact allows understandings from an action that containsthe confrontation and encounter with the other (Andreis, 2017), from which voices of an utterance are shown/ausculted and put in interactive relationships with other utterances, expanding contexts (Scherma, 2017).

LANGUAGE AND BAKHTINIAN THOUGHT

Suppose essential in this perspective of counter-hegemonic teacher education is the notion of responsible act (Deconto & Ostermann, 2021a), next to it. In that case, there is undoubtedly another theme dear to Bakhtinian thought: language. If we think that language enables the negotiation of meanings, organizes the subject’s mental functions, and allows the second birth of man, beyond the physical birth, as a social birth (Volóchinov, 2017), its direct relationship with education becomes more noticeable. Thus, it does not seem possible to us to think about teacher education without reflecting on the unique role played by language in this process. Thus, under the assumption that language is a phenomenon that cannot be disconnected from teacher training, we highlight the power of bringing Bakhtinian thought to the discussion about this training, as well as its prominent position in relation to other teacher training references, in which we do not see such an elaborate and consistent approach to language. Perhaps this is the great contribution offered by Bakhtinian thought to teacher education in relation to other frameworks.

Nevertheless, to promote an extensive discussion on the concept of language would cause a sharp dislocation of the purpose of this work (it is not intended here to develop a thorough treatise on language), since the development of such concept is surrounded by complex and entangled dimensions. Without exhausting the issue, we address, throughout this paper, the main concepts that allow us to understand the notion of language in Bakhtinian thought: verbal interaction, ideological sign, utterance and dialogism. To introduce the question of language, we explain that for the Bakhtinian Circle,

The effective reality of language-speech is not the abstract system of linguistic forms nor the isolated monological utterance, nor the psychophysiological act of its realization, but the social event of verbal interaction that occurs through one or several utterances.(Volóchinov, 2017, p. 218).

This means that the fundamental reality of language is verbal interaction, that is, the basis for the understanding of language in the concrete world, in the world of the event, assuming it as a human activity, a social phenomenon of discursive interaction. Thus, as an activity that is spatio-temporally situated, concrete and singular (Bakhtin, 2010), “and reflects in all its elements both the economic and the sociopolitical organization of the society that generated it” (Volochínov, 2013, p. 141), the concrete utterance is born, the real unit of communication.

In this way, an utterance can never be abstracted from its concrete situation and will never represent a set of loose words, it is addressed to someone, from whom a response is expected and, therefore, will assume an active-responsive posture (Volóchinov, 2017). In this way, there is always a link between utterances, so that an utterance always takes place in response to other utterances and, likewise, is realized under the condition that it will be responded to by other utterances, that is, the utterances establish among themselves relations of meaning, dialogic relationships. These briefly evoked notions, of utterance and dialogism, to give an overview of the notion of language, are further elaborated on in the sections that follow. However, for now, we bring up the element that connects us to the next section of the paper and that is essential in the circle’s discussion of language: the ideological sign.

From the language as a phenomenon of social interaction, which has as real units of communication the statements, behind which there is always a socio-historical subject constituted by value indexes, the signs emerge, which operate as articulators between language and socio-historical reality. Therefore, the sign is an element mediating relations between subjects and also of these with the world around them, whose characteristics, important to understand the circle’s philosophy of language, differ from those that are constituent of the sign (Volóchinov, 2017).

While the sign is understood, the sign is only recognized and, therefore, related to a mechanical communication, of a merely technical character, of pure identification. The sign, thus, is something repeatable, like a code that has a unique, closed and immobile form. The sign, on the other hand, is changeable, flexible and, above all, ideological. The sign is part of a given reality, has a physical presence, and becomes a sign from the social valuation, from a social convention, acquiring, thus, a meaning, but also referring to another reality that is not its own and that will be reflected and refracted by it (Volóchinov, 2017).

Faraco (2009) helps us understand the issue of sign reflection and refraction, pointing out that through the sign it is possible to describe the world (reflection), indicate a given reality external to it, but, especially, build various interpretations (refraction) of this world from different perspectives marked by contradictions of values and social interests. Therefore, “it is not possible to signify without refracting” (Faraco, 2009, p. 51). In this sense, it is possible to understand that Bakhtinian thought puts ideology and sign on the same level, because it states that everything that is ideological has meaning, therefore, is sign.

The sign is not only part of reality but also reflects and refracts another reality and is therefore capable of distorting it, being faithful to it, perceiving it from a specific point of view, and so on. The categories of ideological evaluation (false, true, correct, just, good, etc.) can be applied to any sign. The ideological field coincides with the field of signs, and they can be equated. Where there is a sign there is also ideology. Everything that is ideological has a signified sign (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 93, emphasis in original).

The sign, on the other hand, does not reflect and refract anything, it is not ideological. The sign is a phenomenon of the external world, because it arises in an inter-individual territory, from the process of social interaction of individual socially organized consciousnesses. Thus, if in order to understand a sign another sign is needed, but since the consciousness of each subject is only permeated by signs from the social interaction between them, then the individual consciousness itself is a social and ideological fact.

The verbal sign, the word, assumes these signic and communication functions clearly and fully, so it “is considered the ideological phenomenon par excellence” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 98) and the “most refined and sensitive medium of social communication” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 99). Moreover, it is attributed the title of the purest of signs and a neutral sign, in the sense of being a wild card (something multifaceted and multicontextual), because it can fulfill the ideological functions of all genres: scientific, aesthetic, moral, religious. The word also constitutes the sign material of consciousness, it serves as an inner sign, and therefore “the word accompanies all ideological creation as its indispensable ingredient” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 100). Therefore, the aspect of the materiality of ideology in the conception of language in Bakhtinian thought is evident. The notion of ideological sign necessarily brings to the debate the issue of ideology, enabling the emergence of a political dimension of teacher education, as we develop in the next section.

THE POLITICAL DIMENSION OF TEACHER TRAINING

As Ponzio (2009) points out, perhaps in only one passage of all the works of the Bakhtinian Circle is it possible to find an explicit definition of ideology, albeit a rather synthetic and superficial one:

By ideology, we mean the whole set of reflections and interpretations of social and natural reality in man’s brain, fixed by words, drawings, schemes or other sign forms. (Volochínov, 2013, p. 138, emphasis in original).

Despite not finding an extremely elaborate definition, it is possible to understand the notion of ideology from several meanings attributed by the circle, as shown, for example, Faraco (2009, p. 16-18). Perhaps, the most important element to note is that the circle’s meaning of ideology diverges partially from Marxist currents that associate it with a “false consciousness”: that does not allow the perception of the existence of social contradictions and social classes, “promoted by the dominant forces, and applied to the legitimizing exercise of political power and organizing their action of dominating and keeping the world as it is” (Miotello, 2005, p. 168). In this sense, as Miotello (2005) points out, starting from this conception of ideology as something already given and ready, destroying and reconstructing part of it, the Bakhtinian Circle develops its proposition, extremely dynamic, as a space of contradiction rather than concealment, based on a movement between stability and instability.

The circle will propose the distinction of two levels of ideology, placing, according to Miotello (2005), next to the official ideology, the behavioral ideology. In this proposition, these levels interpenetrate, confront and relate to each other, and should not be understood as separate layers. Therefore, in this conception, we have, on one side, the relatively dominant and structurally stable ideology, which tries to implant a single conception of world production and, on the other side, the relatively unstable ideology, which is constituted in casual encounters, “in social proximity to the conditions of production and reproduction of life” (Miotello, 2005, p. 169). From this movement between what is stable and unstable is that the production of ideology and all its historicity takes place, fruit of social interactions.

The most primary birthplace of ideology occurs at the level of behavioral ideology, in which rather slow changes occur, initially without evident configuration, raised by signs in direct contact with socioeconomic events, in the context of everyday speech, dispersed and routine (Volóchinov, 2017). However, at a certain moment, there occurs a grouping of this plurality of existing ideological threads, which are mutually identified and acquire more stability, materializing a level of ideology with greater consistency and more related to social organizations, “where the changes in the socioeconomic infrastructure resonate more quickly. [...] this level is the one that accumulates the creative energies from which partial or total revisions of the official ideological systems are carried out” (Miotello, 2005, p. 174).

On the other hand, the more stabilized level of official ideology circulates contents that are more accepted by the social whole and supported by the power games. This level of ideology, because it is the reference system constituted and assumed by the dominant social group, imposes itself in relation to the behavioral ideology and sets the hegemonic tone in social relations, seeking to conceal the existing contradictions. However, despite this, it is not the only tone, because these social contradictions, the target of undermining, persist at the base and gradually destroy the official ideology. Thus,

The permanent relationship between these various levels makes the whole ideological set of a given society appear as a single and indivisible set, and in constant motion, because it reacts to the transformations that occur in the productive spheres. And the chain movement, which occurs both in social organization and in interpersonal communication, causes ideology to be constituted and renewed in the uninterrupted contact that occurs between socially organized individuals (Miotello, 2005, p. 175).

Through the exposed discussion, reflecting on the interrelation of the elements stability/instability, sign, appraisal, interaction and ideology, it would be possible to state, in an attempt to synthesize, if it is possible, that:

In this sense, ideology is the ever-present system of representation of society and the world built from references constituted in the interactions and symbolic exchanges developed by certain organized social groups. It is then that one can speak of the way of thinking and being of a given individual, or of a given organized social group, of its ideological line, since it will present a relatively solid and durable central core of its social orientation, the result of uninterrupted social interactions, in which the meanings of the world and of the subjects are constantly being destroyed and reconstructed (Miotello, 2005, p. 176).

From these discussions we argue that, as a human activity, teacher education cannot be conceived in a perspective disconnected from ideology. In this context, an initial aspect that Bakhtinian thought allows us to bring to the discussion involves the confrontation between the two levels of ideology that are present in the training process. On one hand, we have the academic knowledge, already crystallized and stable, and, on the other, the knowledge that the future teacher carries with him/her, fruitful in everyday interactions throughout his/her life, which characterizes the ideology of everyday life.

It is reasonable to think that the formative processes need to pay attention to the fact that future teachers bring with them a baggage of knowledge, beliefs and attitudes concerning teaching and learning that is being formatted over many years, since their first experiences as students, from contact with their teachers. This constitutes what the literature often calls “environmental,” “incidental,” “tacit” training (Maldaner, 2000).

Thus, the teaching degree, when entering the training course, holds a series of conceptions about how to teach, how the student learns, how to evaluate, what science is, among others. This group of conceptions will influence the formative process, and may be a harmful element to the formation, since “it responds to repeated experiences and is acquired non-reflexively as something natural, obvious, the so-called ‘common sense’, thus escaping criticism and becoming a real obstacle” (Carvalho & Gil-Pérez, 1995, p. 26). Such conceptions, characteristic of the behavioral ideology, will confront directly with academic conceptions about the same issues, which are more accepted, stabilized and screened by researchers during the formative process. Thus, we understand that the teacher trainer has a unique role in this process, as it is his or her responsibility to foster critical reflection and the deconstruction and (re)construction of the conceptions in confrontation.

Although the behavioral ideology life can represent an obstacle in the formative process, Furió-Mas (1994) points out that when tacit training is taken into consideration in the formative process, its questioning is not so problematic because, despite its marked naturalness, it does not have as a characteristic a strong stability and consistency, precisely because of its incidental origin. Most likely, this little consistency occurs, as the Circle discussion suggests, because it constitutes a lower level of behavioral ideology. Therefore, it is up to the trainer to understand the common sense conceptions about teaching brought by the undergraduates, to study them and identify their level of stability and consistency to be able to discuss them properly. In this dynamic, the way the trainer’s speeches are articulated will make much difference in achieving the proposed learning, and they can be, according to Bakhtinian thought, authoritative discourse or internally persuasive discourse (to be discussed later).

Another relevant aspect to highlight in this discussion on ideology is the determining role that official ideology, marked by the interests of dominant groups, assumes in teacher education because, as suggested by Bakhtinian thought, it gives the hegemonic tone of social relations and, therefore, also of education and teacher training itself. For example, according to critical theories, education incorporates the values and ideals of the dominant ideology, turning the school into an instrument that, as a rule, ends up serving to reproduce the prevailing social relations (Silva, 2010).

Thus, the teacher training also occurs in these terms, given from the same structural. Ideological contradictions related to the broader social plan (carried by the language into the training), being formatted, in general, according to the interests of the Capital, as it is glimpsed through the perspective of technical rationality, in which there is a bias of utilitarian training, with a view to efficiency and bureaucratization (Oliveira & Jesus, 2020; Baldan & Cunha, 2020). The very notion of competencies, in force in public policies for teacher training, is an unfolding of the capitalist conceptions of the ruling class, of the neoliberal philosophy in education (Kuenzer, 2002; Lavoura, Alves, & Santos Junior, 2020). In this context, reflections on the new teacher education guidelines alert to this articulation between the dominant ideology, competencies, and the training process:

It [neoliberal rationality] forms a thread that ties and articulates teacher training and Basic Education, connected and based on the competencies and skills defined in the BNCC. This proposition opens a considerable door to the market, which will be able to provide products and services in the educational field aligned to the mission of implementing the BNCC in the country’s classrooms. Resolution CNE/CP n. 2/2019 is configured as a powerful strategy, which articulates with other arrangements, in order to compose a network of human capital training tied to the principles of neoliberalism in a conservative version. (Gonçalves, Mota, & Anadon, 2020, p. 373).

In view of this, the policy instituted from Resolution CNE/CP n. 2/2019 represents a fine example of the need for discussion about ideology in the formative processes, since this model leads to a mechanistic, uncritical, disintellectualized perspective, aimed purely at the labor market (Pires & Cardoso, 2020).

Therefore, this conception of education, under the aegis of the dominant social relations, “tends to be reduced to a psychophysical, intellectual, aesthetic and affective preparation subordinated to the one-dimensional needs of mercantile production” Frigotto (2009, p. 72), because the work is reduced to a commodity, which has its value defined by the employment market (purchase and sale of labor power), with a view to a policy of results (Santos & Ferreira, 2021). When, in fact, work is an educational principle (Lavoura, Alves, & Santos Junior, 2020), because through it “the human being produces himself, produces the response to basic, imperative needs, as a being of nature (world of need), but also and not separately to social, intellectual, cultural, recreational, aesthetic, artistic and affective needs” (Frigotto, 2009, p. 72). Given these conjunctures, as Aguiar and Tuttmann (2020) point out, the formative models proposed by the policies are characterized by the dispute of society projects that are organized around two perspectives.

Thus, curricular proposals for teacher training can stimulate revolutionary practices or retard them, as they allow or not the understanding of the world of capitalist labor with all its contradictions; that enable the development of conservative practices or stimulate the development of critical and creative subjects, committed to the construction of other social relations. (Kuenzer, 2011, p. 678).

In this way, more than training teachers for the labor market, with uncritical acceptance of the dominant ideology, it is necessary to train them for the working world, to train them to be able to understand the contradictions existing in society, in order to seek its transformation, since, in Bakhtinian conception, ideology will only renew itself in movement, as a reaction to the transformations that take place at the base. This means not accepting the determinist and pessimistic view that the educational sphere will definitively reproduce hegemonic values. It means that in education there is room for resistance, because although the dominant ideology sets the hegemonic tone, as Bakhtinian thought shows us, it is not the only one. This resistance, however, cannot consist only in opposition, in subversion, it needs to go beyond, in the sense of generating possibilities of change, of emancipation, because the counter-hegemonic is necessarily related to struggle, to transformation (Giroux & Mclaren, 2002).

It is in this sense that the political dimension becomes essential for teacher education, it becomes impossible to be silenced, because it is the one that has the potential to give the training the character of broad understanding of reality, to establish criticism and enable transformations. The first aspect to be highlighted is the fallacy of the neutrality of the formative processes, as if they could occur in an ideologically exempt way.

Perhaps this is the first challenge to face: overcoming the false consciousness of the supposed neutrality of training policies and proposals. Even considering that the space of policy formulation and implementation is a field of disputes, the field of teacher education has been treated over class differences, as if the mere fact of exercising the teaching profession exempted these professionals from class values, conceptions and commitments. Or, as Gramsci (1978) would say, as if they were traditional intellectuals who stand above class differences, seeking to educate everyone for the common good. (Kuenzer, 2011, p. 669).

An example of how important the political dimension is in education is quite evident in periods like the one education has been going through, target of attacks aiming to promote silencing that would lead to “the liquidation of the public school as a space of human formation, based on the values of freedom, democratic coexistence and right and respect for diversity” (Frigotto, 2017, p. 17), as predicted by the project “School without Party” (PL 7180/14). Simply put, the project wanted to impose a false ideological neutrality in education, when, in fact, what it wanted to eliminate was exactly the ideology capable of transforming, moving, restructuring the official ideology that is given (as “neutral”) in society and education.

In this sense, it is possible to bring the political dimension of training closer to Giroux’s (1997, p. 163) assumptions that point to “the need to make the pedagogical more political and the political more pedagogical.” This means that teacher education cannot be limited to discussing only the valuable pedagogical and methodological issues, but must also assume a critical character regarding society, school, knowledge, and teaching. The training should lead the future teacher to think about what he teaches, why he teaches, and, most importantly, to whom he teaches, always aiming at the strengthening of democracy, the overcoming of social and economic injustices, the promotion of problematization, and the development of agents, critics, and with an active voice, which is certainly not seen in the hegemonic model of training.

The important thing is not only to provide future teachers with a training that allows them to develop a language of critique (although this does not occur in the hegemonic model), but beyond that, to develop a language of possibility, which allows effective action to destabilize and transform what the language of critique allows to contest. These aspects are aligned to the very complexity of ideology in Bakhtinian thought that, between instability and stability, is established in a constant movement of destruction-(re)construction-transformation of meanings of the world and the subjects, as a space of contradiction and not of concealment.

Thus, from the political dimension, one glimpses, then, the displacement of formative characteristics traditionally associated with the model of teacher as technical rationalist toward the model of teacher as critical intellectual, in the terms of Contreras (2012):

The figure of the critical intellectual is, therefore, that of a professional who actively participates in the effort to discover the hidden, to unravel the historical and social origin of what is presented as ‘natural’, to capture and show the processes by which the practice of teaching is trapped in pretensions, relationships and experiences of doubtful educational value. It is also an effort to discover the ways in which dominant ideological values, cultural practices, and forms of organization may not only limit the possibilities for teacher action, but also the very prospects for analyzing and understanding teaching, its educational purposes, and its social function. Likewise, the critical intellectual is concerned with capturing and enhancing those aspects of his or her professional practice that retain the possibility of educationally valuable action, while seeking the transformation or reconduction of those aspects that do not possess it, whether personal, organizational, or social (Contreras, 2012, p. 203).

Thus, the political dimension of the dialogical-responsible perspective points to the commitment of training to enable a broader understanding of society, the power games, the conditions that will positively or negatively influence the lives of future teachers, their performance in the classroom and the lives of their students. It implies a critical formation that leads the future teacher to think about what he or she teaches, why he or she teaches, and, mainly, to whom he or she teaches, always aiming at the strengthening of democracy, the overcoming of social and economic injustices, the promotion of problematization, and the development of agent, critical, and active voice beings. Thus, it brings nuances of a critical intellectuality to the formation, as well as notes for the construction of a teaching autonomy as emancipation.

CONTEXTUAL DIMENSION OF TEACHER TRAINING

Throughout these discussions, it is clear that Bakhtinian thought rejects the thesis that language is a system of abstract and stable linguistic forms, governed by normative laws that would give it an objective and closed character, independent of ideological values, neutral, detached from the social level. Similarly, he rejects the antithesis to this, that language materializes in purely individual speech acts, as an activity analogous to artistic creations, guided by laws of individual psychology. Thus, in Bakhtinian thought, one glimpses the idea that “language acquires life and is historically formed just here, in concrete verbal communication, and not in the abstract system of language forms, nor in the individual psyche of speakers” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 220). Thus, as Volóchinov (2017, p. 221) conceptualizes, “utterances are the real units that make up the stream of language-speech,” whose origin lies precisely in the interaction between subjects:

A concrete utterance (and not a linguistic abstraction) is born, lives and dies in the process of social interaction of the participants of the utterance. Its signification and its form in general are defined by the form and character of this interaction (Volochínov, 2013, p. 86).

Thus, for Bakhtinian thought there is a clear distinction between the conventional units of language (phrases and sentences) and the real units of speech communication (utterances). The conventional units are linguistic abstractions, which are context-independent and concern the repeatable and generalizable, they do not have a direct link with the real-life phenomenon. In opposition to these units are the utterances that, in a conception coherent with the vision of eventfulness and uniqueness of being, prioritize the unrepeatable, the unique, the singular, the concrete, the real, they are the result of interactions and, consequently, permeated by otherness relationships. It is also seen that, as the utterance is basically determined by the interaction, by the conditions of the utterance, it will always be linked to social structures (Bakhtin, 2011).

That is, the utterances will always reflect the particularities of a given field of human activity, so they need to be taken in its entirety, which involves not only the verbal, but also the extraverbal. Accordingly, the utterance is determined by the situation and its audience, in which it is understood that the first is “the effective realization in real life of one of the forms, one of the varieties, of social exchange” (Volochínov, 2013, p. 159); and the second, the presence of one or more actors/locutors that the lived situation supposes.

The audience reflects in the social orientation of the utterance. As an utterance, different from phrases and sentences, always has an interlocutor, an addressee, a directionality, its construction always takes into account who is this interlocutor (even if it is not real), being mediated, therefore, by relations of otherness. Thus, the conditions of the other, such as his social class, his profession, his convictions and prejudices, for example, will influence the responsive understanding of the utterance uttered to him.

The situation, on the other hand, points to the fact that “verbal communication can never be understood and explained outside of this connection with a concrete situation” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 220). Therefore, verbal communication always requires an extraverbal complement, which represents the entire socio-historical-cultural surroundings involved in the verbal interaction between subjects. The extraverbal context is what gives meaning to the verbal part of the utterance, because the meaning of the word is the same in all situations, however, its theme, is defined only in the correlation with the extraverbal context. The extraverbal context allows understanding “that it is precisely the difference of situations that determines the difference of the meanings of the same verbal expression” (Volochínov, 2013, p. 172, emphasis in original), because what defines it is the articulation of three inseparable factors (Volochínov, 2013, p. 78):

1. a spatial horizon shared by both speakers (the unity of the visible);

2. the common knowledge and understanding of the situation, equally shared by both;

3. the shared valuation by the two, of this situation.

In this sense, the utterance always has a part perceived or realized by the words and a part implied. The implied part, constituted by the extraverbal context, is the knowledge that is not verbally explicit, but implied, indicating that what is said in the interaction is complemented by what is not said. The presupposed represents, therefore, what is common/shared between the subjects of the interaction, what is seen, recognized, known, “it is first of all a material unity of the world, which forms part of the horizon of the speakers [...] and the unity of the real conditions of life that generate the community of values” (Volochínov, 2013, p. 80). What is presupposed must therefore be social and never individual.

It should be noted that the presumed can assume a more or less broad character. At a less broad level is the immediate context, narrower, restricted, which refers more specifically to the moment of occurrence of the utterance; such level can expand both in time and space and assume a broader context, a mediated context, referring to the relationship that the subjects of interaction have with the plane of social and historical organization in which they are inserted. In this case, the utterance can act by supporting itself in constant factors of life and in fundamental social evaluations.

Thus, in this conception, teacher education, as a human activity that requires language to structure and develop should not be disconnected from the most diverse contexts that surround it and that give it meaning. Therefore, the Bakhtinian referential allows us to reflect that the teacher education processes require a contextual and institutional dimension.

A first relevant context to highlight, perhaps shrouded by a certain obviousness, is the most immediate one, the context of occurrence of the events, the classroom in which teacher trainer and future teacher interact. About this narrow context, obviously, the articulation of the three elements that define the extraverbal context of the situation must be taken into consideration, but, mainly, the nuances of these elements that refer to the audience of this situation: Who is this student? What worldviews does he possess? How will the speech be understood by him? In this sense, this more immediate context points to the need for non-indifference of the trainer with the teaching degree, as it often happens in university education.

The irrelevance of the audience in the process, the indifference to the subject, is a mark, for example, of the scientific context itself influencing teacher training. It does not matter much the subject, it matters the content, the knowledge. The scientific context, which involves the production of scientific knowledge, ends up being the most preponderant in university institutions and introduces in teaching some worldviews that characterize it. Under the strong presence of this context, universities value research activities and depreciate teaching activities and, consequently, prioritize research-oriented training, such as bachelor’s degrees, to the detriment of teaching-oriented training, such as teaching degrees. For example, the university professor himself doesn’t need to have an affinity to the educational context when he joins the institution, but he does need to have an affinity to the scientific context, and must necessarily have training and a certain recognition in the specific area. In general, their priority is to do research and teach some classes to fulfill the minimum workload required.

In this sense, the scientific context tends to transpose values such as the hierarchization/prioritization of research over teaching, of theory over practice, of those who produce knowledge over those who “apply/receive,” among others. However, this context, in which the knowledge that becomes the object that trainers and undergraduates focus on is produced, involves teacher education in a controversial way, since it is not the reference science, the knowledge produced by science that is taught by the trainers, but disciplines that result from the transformation, selection and adaptation of this knowledge. “This means to say that academic knowledge is produced in the midst of purposes specific to the different university institutions, which guide the choice, organization and transformation of scientific knowledge to be taught” (Marandino, Selles, & Ferreira, 2009, p. 93).

The controversy lies in the fact that in this process of transformation, these purposes are established by those who research teacher education and, therefore, assume different evaluations from those who research the specific area, so teacher education is established in the tension between groups involved in the process: from the specific area (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.), from education and interface area (science education). This situation allows us to think about another important context of the formative process, a little broader than the immediate level: the institutional context. The institutional context which, with its vision on teacher training (not always consensual among peers), implicitly organizes certain behaviors and the actions of the trainers, determines norms that influence everyone and creates an environment in which certain worldviews can be considered unworthy and others naturalized - becoming inculcated in these subjects, even if in a veiled way, as Deconto (2014) points out.

Thus, it is important to discuss the role of educators in the design and reading of the training proposal of the course. Thinking about the conception, it is necessary to highlight the actions of the Núcleo Docente Estruturante (NDE) of the courses, created by MEC’s ordinance No. 147, of February 2, 2007, responsible for the formulation of the Pedagogical Project of the Course (PPC). We understand that it is from the discussion developed in this core (not without listening to other teacher educators) that the memory of future² (Bakhtin, 2011) about teacher education is projected, that is, the memory of the “final” finish of this stage of training, materialized in the PPC, which will define a teacher’s profile and should give direction to the actions of the educators.

However, the “finish” to the project is not given only by the constituent members of the NDE, but by a larger group of educators and, in this sense, the reading of the proposal comes into play. Perhaps it is at this moment that the institutional context, marked by tensions and diverse interests, shows more forcefully its reflection in teacher education. It is possible to state that, many times, the PPC elaborated does not harmonize with the predominant vision of education that circulates in the institutional context. Moreover, it is not absurd to state that the PPC is not valued and known by most of the subjects that make up the institutional context. In this sense, this context is decisive to break with a hegemonic formation, since it is not enough to have a project conceived in a counter-hegemonic conception of formation if there is no “reading” of it that implies actions committed to the memory of the future projected therein.

Finally, there is a much broader context involved in the training process that concerns historical, social, political and economic issues that, undoubtedly, need to be articulated to the knowledge of education, as well as the ways of organizing school spaces during teacher training. Thus, a broader context that impacts the functioning of universities, as well as the organization of teaching degree courses and the school itself where the future teacher will work, is the ideological context prevailing in our society in recent decades, characterized by the implementation of neoliberal policies.

Despite the resistance movements of the institutions, this logic penetrates their structures impacting on the organization, management, values, form of knowledge production, content of the curriculum, forms of assessment and training of professionals (Leher & Motta, 2012). The logic behind these policies are the interests linked to the new world economic order, through which education becomes a capitalist tool, oriented to the market. In this conception, from the 1980s on, a series of reforms began to be implemented under the determinations of international/multilateral organizations.

The international organizations, based on this reality, began to determine the goals that countries must achieve, also in the field of education. This is how some organizations have covertly taken over the role of the ministries of education, especially in the case of developing countries (Maués, 2003, p. 93).

In this context, teacher education has, over the years, been increasingly influenced by these policies, which try, at all costs, to effect their project of deintellectualization, disqualification and depoliticization of the teacher, as well as the lightening, emptying and fragmentation of training (Shiroma et al., 2017). Such policies have their incorporation in teacher training projects favored by what Shiroma et al. (2017) call teaching reconversion. According to Rossi (2005 cited in Shiroma et al., 2017, p. 22-23):

[...] teacher reconversion means “the set of strategies adopted by different instances and centers of power to rationalize the educational systems” and adjust educational policies “to the economic pressures of (inter)national agencies. Thus, the ‘quality of education’ would be achieved, a slogan that subsumes the purpose of subordinating school education and teacher training to the demands of the productive sector.

Thus, the concept “reconversion” implies “assigning new meanings to training and leading teachers to believe in the reform and carry it out. On the other hand, it means the adaptation of training institutions to this standard” (Evangelista, 2010, p. 3). Thus, to the extent that training guidelines, such as the most recent ones instituted by resolution CNE/CP n. 2/2019, bring, through the idea of reconversion, the principles of hegemonic ideology and force training institutions to adapt to this standard (therefore, it relates to the institutional context as well), the impact of this context on the training process is evident.

Therefore, the ideological context in our society is an example of these broader contexts of teacher education that need to be situated, understood, and criticized. Such a context has nothing to do with an education in the Bakhtinian sense, because in this conception it is not uniformity, centralization, the standard, the final product that matters, but non-indifference to the other, lovingness, openness, the process, respect for differences.

In summary, the contextual and institutional dimension of teacher training points to the need for an organic training, concerned with the totality and not with isolated fragments, with a training that needs to be situated. Situated not simply, but as an example, in the contexts mentioned above. By providing this more integral vision, it clarifies its relational nature to the other formative dimensions, in the sense of giving them more meaning, more connection with reality and awareness of the phenomena that occur in the formation process of these subjects.

KNOWLEDGE DIMENSION OF TEACHER TRAINING

In the circle’s conception of language it is identified that the situation and the social audience will determine how the choice and ordering of words is made, that is, they will determine what in Bakhtinian thought is called intonation, expressive intonation, evaluation, value accent, appreciative value, which is nothing more than the question of value, the axiological component intrinsic to the human being, deeply discussed in Bakhtin (2010), in its full correlation with language. In this sense, intonation points to the fact that:

Any actually spoken word has not only a theme and meaning in the referential content sense of these words, but also value judgment, because all referential contents exist in living speech, are said or written in conjunction with a specific evaluative accent. Without evaluative accent there is no word.(Volóchinov, 2017, p. 233).

Therefore, there is no utterance without evaluation, there is no neutral utterance, it will always have an evaluative orientation, which determines the choice and order of all the main significant elements of the utterance, as well as the combination between them. Thus, intonation works as a guide to the social relations established between speaker and listener, and can be considered the phonic expression of social evaluation, in which its essentially social nature and its function of establishing a link between verbal and extraverbal is evident. In such a way, intonation points out that “enunciating is to take an evaluative position; it is to position oneself in front of other evaluative social positions, since we always speak in a social atmosphere saturated with evaluations” (Faraco, 2009, p. 74).

Such axiological saturation leads to look at language as a stratified phenomenon, not only in the most common sense, which involves stratifications produced by social, temporal and geographical varieties, but, fundamentally, “by social indexes of value coming from the diversified socio-historical experience of social groups. What we call language is also and mainly an undefined set of social voices” (Faraco, 2009, p. 57). That is, language is heterogeneous, constituted by a multiplicity of social voices that characterize what is called heteroglossia.

The concept of voice, like others in Bakhtinian thought, is metaphorical in nature, not representing a sound emission, “but of the semantic-social manner deposited in the word” (Bubnova, 2011, p. 270). Thus, voice represents the “semiotic-axiological complexes with which a given group says the world” (Faraco, 2009, p. 56); “is identified with opinion, idea, point of view, ideological stance” (Bubnova, 2011, p. 276); “takes on the character of worldviews or perceptions realized through discourse” (Brait, 1999, p. 25).

Thus, it is possible to highlight, firstly, that each voice has a chronotopy that situates it as unique and, secondly, that the voices should always be understood as related to others that are previous while addressing others to come, being, in this process of dialogic confrontation, producers of meaning. However, Faraco (2009) points out that, for Bakhtinian thought, heteroglossia matters less than the dynamic relationship that is established between the multiple voices, that is, than the dialogization of these. It is in this world of dialogized heteroglossia that the utterance comes to life. Thus, dialogism is, for the Bakhtinian Circle, the constitutive principle of language and the condition of meaning of discourse, constituted by dialogic relationships.

These relations are profoundly original and cannot be reduced to logical, or linguistic, or psychological, or mechanical, or any other natural relations. It is the new kind of semantic relations, whose members can only be integral utterances (or seen as integral or potentially integral), through which they are (and in which they express themselves) actual or potential speech subjects, authors of such utterances. The actual dialogue (the everyday conversation, the scientific discussion, the political discussion, etc.). The relation between the replicas of such dialogue is the most extremely notorious and simplest type of dialogic relationships. However, dialogic relationships by no means coincide with the relations between the replicas of the real dialogue; they are much broader, more diverse, and more complex.(Bakhtin, 2011, p. 330-331).

It follows, firstly, that the exchange of turns between the interlocutors is only one of the meanings attributed to dialogue. Face-to-face dialogue is, therefore, despite being the most important form of verbal interaction, the strict sense of this conceptualization which, in a broad sense, is the field of manifestation of dialogic relationships - more complex and elaborate than this simple mechanical relationship. Thus, dialogic relationships are not merely reduced to logical or linguistic relations, they are semantic relations, relations of meaning that are established between utterances (Bakhtin, 2011).

Dialogism implies that every utterance is related to the “already said.” There is no first word, the speaker is not a biblical Adam (Bakhtin, 2011), the discourse is always constituted from the dialogue with other discourses, of course, not mechanically, directly, as a reflection of something already existing outside it, finished. The utterance is created from something already existing, but in this process it becomes something new, unique, that did not exist before it (Bakhtin, 2011). On the other hand, the utterance has not only preceding links, but also subsequent links, that is, dialogism also implies that, in addition to being oriented by what has already been said, utterances are oriented toward response: “the utterance is constructed taking into account the responsive attitudes, for the sake of which it, in essence, is created” (Bakhtin, 2011, p. 301). Just as there is no first word, there is no last word, the utterance always requires a response from the other, which is anticipated by the author; the utterance is constituted in the relationship with the other.

As the utterance positions itself in front of a response, it always requires a responsive understanding (Bakhtin, 2011), that is, an understanding that is not passive, that is not a simple repetition of the enunciator’s thought in a process with no relation between the participants, in which only the recognition, the identification of codes occurs. “To understand another’s utterance means to orient oneself in relation to it, to find for it a proper place in the corresponding context” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 232). Thus, responsive/active understanding always implies taking a position, it also implies seeking to oppose to each word of the author’s utterance a counterword of one’s own. That is, understanding is a response to signs by means of other signs, since one does not understand the sign by the same sign. Therefore, as Volóchinov (2017, p. 232) emphasizes, “all understanding is dialogical.”

Moreover, dialogism points out that every utterance is internally dialogized, that is, it is the meeting point and confrontation of several voices. As Bakhtin highlights, there are no words without voice: “in every word there are voices and sometimes infinitely distant, anonymous, almost impersonal voices (the voices of lexical nuances, styles, etc.), almost imperceptible, and close voices, which sound concurrently” (Bakhtin, 2011, p. 330). Thus, within an utterance, these voices engage in dialogic relationships: “they will support each other, interilluminate, partially or totally oppose each other, dilute each other, parody each other, throw each other around, polemicize veiledly or explicitly, and so on” (Faraco, 2009, p. 58).

Dialogism, without a doubt, is an element present in teacher education. Since education is mediated by language, given by interactive processes, the relationships of meaning established among the different discourses present therein are marked by dialogism. The construction of knowledge in the formative processes is based on language, language not as language, but as an utterance that depends on the context, that is permeated by many voices, that answers and is answer, that is permeated by evaluations, that is dialogical. Therefore, the process of knowledge construction is extremely dynamic and represents a dimension that could not be absent in reflections on teacher education.

The knowledge that permeates the teacher education is quite complex, because it is the result of the dialogue of an indefinite number of voices (Faraco, 2009): from the teachers of different subjects, colleagues, textbooks, discussions in seminars, teachers present in the classrooms where the internships take place, articles, the scientific initiation supervisor, etc. It is possible to state that this knowledge is built much more by the confrontation of antagonistic voices than by their harmonious meeting. For example, there is a lot of talk about the conflicts between the voices coming from the Faculties of Education and the Specific Departments in the processes of teacher education: on one hand, the humanistic components are highlighted; on the other, the specific components are addressed, usually guided by worldviews with positivist traits.

The conflict between these different voices in itself does not represent a problem in training, since it does not seem wrong to think that, in the light of Bakhtinian thought, knowledge is built relationally, in the confrontation of one meaning with another, of one event with another, of one voice with another, etc., however, the way the conflict between the different voices is established can be harmful. Thus, if the knowledge dimension involves both the specific and the pedagogical ones (and many others, of course), the way they are built and conceived in the training will be crucial, considering that, as argued in Bakhtinian thought and shown in Deconto (2020), they should be constituted by a totalizing and not a fragmentary vision, by an architectonic and not a mechanical vision, as it happens, for example, if these components of knowledge are developed in a disjointed way, as we can see in the technical rationality.

Therefore, thinking about the opposition between what does not allow itself to penetrate “the unity of meaning” (Bakhtin, 2011) - mechanical - and what indicates a space of provisional construction - architectural, of interactive relationships, the dimension of knowledge allows pointing to the need to promote the articulation of knowledge that constitute training (here we use as an example only the specific x pedagogical dichotomy, but with the caveat that they are not the only ones) implicating each other, establishing relationships of meaning, establishing a living dialogue, without allowing any to be muted. Only in this way will training escape “a monological form of knowledge” (Bakhtin, 2011). As a result of a process of construction, therefore, dialogical, this knowledge needs to be responsively understood by future teachers, so that it can be knowledge recognized by them as such, because as Bakhtin (2010) points out, knowledge is not that which is universally valid, but rather that which is updated by the recognition of being. Thus,

Within Bakhtin’s conception of knowledge, a critique of instrumental rationality and utilitarianism is present: the human sciences are defined as another scientific form from a historical perspective (BAJTIN, 1997, 2003). At the same time, knowledge is linked to the ethical act or acting. To separate reason from historical activity and will would be pure illusion of rationalism (1997, p. 34). Approaching Paulo Freire’s conception of education, in Bakhtin knowledge is related to change. Education as a human and social science, as praxis, has a dimension of search for truth and, at the same time, a dimension of action. [...] To change is to overcome indifference, to establish difference, to alter, to be disturbed by the situation of the other, of the many others. In this process, knowledge is marked by aesthetics, contributing to think the life of teachers and students, as well as the role of the university. (Kramer, 2013, p. 41).

In view of these considerations about knowledge, it would be reasonable to propose that all undergraduate courses, not only those in literature, have some contact with the perspective of the Bakhtinian Circle in their training process, perhaps in disciplines of epistemological foundations, since this would enable a broader understanding of the production of knowledge and the relationships of teachers with the “others” of the educational processes (teachers, students, parents, managers, etc.).); besides showing the need to humanize teaching and make it more dialogical, more open, dynamic, unpredictable, less closed, less dogmatic, less technical.

Another relevant issue is that dialogism points out that everything that is said is populated by words of the other, so that the utterance is marked by the manipulation of what, in Bakhtinian thought, is called “extraneous speech.” This is considered “the discourse within the discourse, the utterance within the utterance, but at the same time it is also the discourse about the discourse, the utterance about the utterance” (Volóchinov, 2017, p. 249). Therefore, speaking, as Ponzio (2009) points out, means employing pieces obtained from the disassembly of others’ discourses, which are concrete discourses, they are already manipulated materials that have not only general meanings, but also ideological meaning.

However, this does not happen in a relationship of simple equivalence, since the discourses are arranged in dialogic relationships. This means that the utterance, in addition to the voice of its speaker, reproduces other voices, sometimes in an explicit, well-demarcated way, and sometimes in a veiled way. In the process of transmitting the word of others, there will be different modes of operation of the voices: some will act as voices of authority and others as internally persuasive voices. It is from the clash and dialogic interrelationships between these two categories that the socio-ideological construction of the subject will occur.

The authoritarian word, as Faraco (2009, p.84) points out, “is the one that questions us, demands from us recognition and unconditional adherence,” because it is linked to authority and impregnated with the notion of absolute truth; thus, it assumes an unquestionable and hierarchical form. Such status, conferred in the process of recognition and assimilation, prevents this word from being modified and must be assimilated “as a compact, encapsulated, centripetal, impermeable mass, resistant to bivocalizations” (Faraco, 2009, p. 84). The word authoritarian circulates through the official spheres of society, representing the word of religion, parents, science, teacher, and politics, among others.

Differently, the internally persuasive word “appears as one among many others. It transits, therefore, in the borders, is centrifugal, is permeable to bivocalizations and hybridizations, is continuously open to change” (Faraco, 2009, p. 85). Despite lacking authority and often being publicly despised and deprived of legality, the word thus recognized by the subject, is determinant in the process of ideological formation of individual consciousness (Vauthier, 2010). For, “unlike the outwardly authoritative word, the inwardly persuasive word, in the course of its positive assimilation, intertwines closely with ‘our word’” (Bakhtin, 1994 cited in Vauthier, 2010, p. 93).

In this way, a mixture of words constitutes a discourse that is half ours, and half someone else’s. There is a link, not isolation, as is characteristic of the authoritative word. There is a link and not isolation, a separation, as is characteristic of the word of authority. Therefore,

In the stream of our consciousness, the internally persuasive word is usually semi- “ours” semi-"others.” Its creative productivity consists of awakening our thinking and our autonomous word, which it organizes within the masses of our words instead of residing in isolation and immobility. (Bakhtin, 1994, cited in Vauthier, 2010, p. 93).

Thus, while the authoritative word seeks to remain sovereign over the other voices, aiming to allude to orthogonal and conflicting positions, the internally persuasive word operates in the opposite direction, of openness, unfinishedness, appreciation, and negotiation between the conflicting positions. In this sense, Freitas (2013) questions:

To what extent does the teacher's fixation on authoritative words impede the students' understanding of their learning? How can the teacher's words to his students become internally persuasive? How can the teacher establish dialogical relations with his students in the teaching-learning process so that they free themselves from others' words and build their own? (Freitas, 2013, p. 100).

This dynamic that is established between the voices is a highly relevant aspect of the teacher education process, because the way the teacher trainer exercises his action through language has the potential to contribute to more fruitful training or even hinder the process, and, in the latter case, provide a less rich and dynamic training, as demonstrated in the study of Magalhães, Ninin, and Lessa (2014). Suppose the discourse, common in the Exact Sciences, assumes the character of an authoritarian word, almost as a universal and unquestionable truth, without much space for conflicting, questioning, problematizing voices. In that case, the construction of knowledge of future teachers becomes limited because they are practically forced to accept and adhere to the knowledge that, in this case, can be said, be transmitted by the teacher.

Thus, there is no construction of knowledge when the discourse is that of authority, and there is transmission; there is no interaction, negotiation of meanings, there is only the simple reception. This situation is evidenced in the hegemonic models of training, in which the future teacher is not encouraged to reflect on his learning, on his practice, on the processes of teaching and learning. In the hegemonic training, the undergraduate student only needs to appropriate the methods and techniques that he or she will apply in the classroom, to appropriate exactly how the academic researchers propose, from their scientific authority, the models that they consider appropriate for any situation and subject.

On the other hand, internally persuasive speeches can raise the development of counter-hegemonic perspectives of training, since, by not placing themselves as authoritarian, they allow the opening for inference. In this conception, an interrelation is established between the teacher's words and the future teachers' own words, which are intertwined, providing dynamism, movement, tension, clash, reflection, questioning to the training process. One glimpses, therefore, a perspective of negotiation of meanings in detriment to rigidity, to dogmatism, allowing the construction of knowledge instead of its simple acceptance and "forced" incorporation. It is the perspective of dialogism, interaction, agentivity, non-indifference, and otherness, which gives way to a more critical, non-doctrinating education that allows the questioning of the current order.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In this paper, we developed some reflections on teacher education that Bakhtinian thought allowed us to develop, always in tension with the hegemonic model. We discuss in this paper the political, contextual and knowledge dimensions, and characteristics of part of what we call "dialogical-responsible teacher education" (Deconto, 2020). Such a construct is not meant to be a theory of Bakhtinian teacher education nor a model of education; we are not here stipulating a prescription for teacher education, content that should be covered, how it should be covered, or how education should occur. We present a perspective (among others that may come to exist based on this referential) that contains our reflections based on the worldview apprehended from Bakhtinian thought that may contribute to the constitution of counter-hegemonic training.

In this process, the notion of sign brought to the discussion the issue of ideology, enabling the emergence of a political dimension of the dialogical-responsible formation. Similarly, the vision of living and concrete language, understood as a human activity resulting from social interaction, leads to the discussion of the necessary link between utterance, situation and audience. Thus, they indicate the importance of context for understanding language, the importance of the real situation, and the eventfulness, providing reflections on a contextual dimension of the processes of teacher education. Perhaps, as the concept most immediately associated with Bakhtinian thought, dialogism, could not be separated from our discussions, bringing understandings to the relationships established in the teacher training process, directly implying the emersion of the knowledge dimension.

As a way to synthesize the discussions developed in this section, we present in Box 1 a synthesis with the dimensions of dialogical-responsible teacher training presented here, dimensions of counter-hegemonic training that elements of Bakhtinian thought allowed us to build.

Box 1:
Summary of the dimensions of dialogic-responsible teacher education. Source: Deconto (2020).

We understand that these dimensions of dialogical-responsible teacher education allow us to complement or even advance in relation to previous formative perspectives. For example, as presented in this essay, the contextual dimension is hardly contemplated in more progressive perspectives of teacher education, different from the political and knowledge dimensions. However, the theorization correlated to the knowledge dimension, in most discussions of teacher education, is quite restricted to the important discussion of the articulation of specific and pedagogical knowledge, advancing little towards the understanding of the dialogical, conflictual, tensioning and responsive character of this knowledge that the Bakhtinian conception of language allows us to elaborate. That is, the dimension of knowledge presented is not limited to discussing the knowledge of training. However, the dynamics of its happening in the process, highlighting its character of (re)construction in detriment of reproduction/transmission, which requires a displacement of the authoritarian, dogmatic, stable, closed, monological, universally true, often characteristic of higher education, for the unstable, open, negotiable, unpredictable, malleable.

These dimensions discussed here, along with those developed in Deconto and Ostermann (2021a) - ethics, aesthetics and praxis, understood not as prescriptions, but as general principles, allow rethinking, transforming, giving directions, structuring formations that break with the hegemonic model of formation. This understanding of the constructed dimensions occurs precisely because they establish a perspective based on a critical movement against the hegemonic model, based on the revision of its fundamental assumptions. In this critical process, through the tension with other texts, inadequacies and contradictions emerged that allowed us, even if not fully, to reconstruct from another vision, originated by our active understanding of the circle's ideas.

We believe this perspective brings relevant contributions to the field of teacher education, because the dimensions we built allow us to establish a blunt criticism of the anachronistic teacher education guidelines (resolution CNE/CP n.2/2019). These dimensions are opposed to training conceptions established in this document, such as those discussed and characterized by Deconto and Ostermann (2021b) as follows: practicalist; prescriptive and technicalist; applicationist and reproductionist; apolitical; and fragmented. For each of these views, grounded in the praxis, knowledge, aesthetic, political, and contextual dimensions of dialogic-responsible training, we find a powerful analytical framework for understanding the size of the setback in teacher education policies established by the 2019 guidelines.

Finally, we highlight the non-arbitrariness and non-mechanicality of the dimensions of the dialogical-responsible perspective of teacher education, that is, they are not watertight categories, but dimensions with organicity originated from the theorization developed from the concepts of language and responsible action (in the case of the dimensions complementary to those presented in this article) in the context of teacher education.

Preprint

DOI: https://preprints.scielo.org/index.php/scielo/preprint/view/2474

REFERÊNCIAS

• Aguiar, Marcia, & Tuttman, Malvina T. (2020). BNCC e formação de professores: concepções, tensões, atores e estratégias. Retratos da Escola, 13(25), 33-37. <https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6673.emaberto.33i107.4533>
  » https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6673.emaberto.33i107.4533
• Andreis, Adriana M. (2017). Cotejo e Confroencontro. In. GEGe - UFSCar(Orgs.). Palavras e contrapalavras - entendendo o cotejo como proposta metodológica(pp. 11-16). São Carlos: Pedro e João Editores.
• Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (2010). Para uma filosofia do ato responsável São Carlos: Pedro e João Editores.
• Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (2011). Estética da criação verbal. 6. ed.São Paulo: Editora WMF Martins.
• Baldan, Merilin, & Cunha, Érika V. R. (2020). Povoando subjetividades na “nova” política para a formação de professores no Brasil: uma discussão acerca das competências. Série-Estudos, 25(55), 51-71. <https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1501>
  » https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1501
• Brait. Beth. (1999). As vozes bakhtinianas e o diálogo inconcluso. In Daiana L. P. Barros, & José L. Fiorin(Orgs.). Dialogismo, polifonia e intertextualidade: em torno de Bakhtin (pp. 11-27). São Paulo: EDUSP.
• Bubnova, Tatiana. (2011). Voz, sentido e diálogo em Bakhtin. Bakhtiniana, 6(1), 268-280. <https://doi.org/10.1590/S2176-45732011000200016>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S2176-45732011000200016
• Carvalho, Anna M. P., & Gil-Pérez, Daniel. (1995). Formação de professores de ciências: tendências e inovações São Paulo: Cortez.
• Coimbra, Camila L. (2020). Os Modelos de Formação de Professores/as da Educação Básica: quem formamos? Educação e Realidade, 45(1), 1-22. <https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-623691731>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-623691731
• Contreras, Domingo. (2012). Autonomia de professores 2. ed. São Paulo: Cortez.
• Deconto, Diomar C. S. (2014). A perspectiva CTS na disciplina de Metodologia do Ensino de Física: um estudo na formação de professores à luz do referencial sociocultural Dissertação de mestrado, Universidade federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. Disponível em:<Disponível em:https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/109803/000951255.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y > Acesso em:14/10/2022.
  » https://lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/109803/000951255.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
• Deconto, Diomar C. S. (2020). Pensamento bakhtiniano e perspectivas críticas: elementos para uma formação contra-hegemônica de professores de ciências Tese de doutorado, Universidade federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. Disponível em:<Disponível em:https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/218430/001122493.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y >. Acesso em:14/10/2022.
  » https://www.lume.ufrgs.br/bitstream/handle/10183/218430/001122493.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
• Deconto, Diomar C. S., & Ostermann, Fernanda. (2020). Educação em ciências e pensamento bakhtiniano: uma análise de trabalhos publicados em periódicos nacionais. Revista Brasileira de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências, 20(u), 121-156. <https://doi.org/10.28976/1984-2686rbpec2020u121156>
  » https://doi.org/10.28976/1984-2686rbpec2020u121156
• Deconto, Diomar C. S., & Ostermann, Fernanda. (2021a). Dimensões práxica, ética e estética da formação docente: uma perspectiva à luz do pensamento Bakhtiniano. Ciência & Educação (Bauru), 27 u 1-18. <https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-731320210067>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-731320210067
• Deconto, Diomar C. S., & Ostermann, Fernanda. (2021b). Treinar professores para aplicar a BNCC: as novas diretrizes e seu projeto mercadológico para a formação docente. Caderno Brasileiro de Ensino de Física, 38(3), 1730-1761. <https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7941.2021.e84149>
  » https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7941.2021.e84149
• Evangelista, Olinda. (2010). Políticas de formação docente no governo Lula (2002-2010). In Anais do VIIISeminário Internacional Redestrado. Lima: Universidad de Ciências y humanidades.
• Faraco, Carlos. A. (2009). Linguagem & diálogo: as ideias linguísticas do círculo de Bakhtin São Paulo: Parábola Editorial.
• Freitas, Maria T. A. (2013). Implicações do ser no mundo e responder aos desafios que a educação nos apresenta. In Maria T. A Freitas. Educação, arte e vida em Bakhtin (pp. 95-106). Belo Horizonte: Autêntica Editora.
• Frigotto, Gaudêncio. (2009). Teoria e práxis e o antagonismo entre a formação politécnica e as relações sociais capitalistas. Trabalho, educação e saúde, 7, 67-82. <https://doi.org/10.1590/S1981-77462009000400004>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S1981-77462009000400004
• Frigotto, Gaudêncio. (2017). Escola “sem” partido: esfinge que ameaça a educação e a sociedade brasileira Rio de Janeiro: UERJ, LLP.
• Furió-Mas, Carles J. (1994). Tendências actuales em la formación del profesorado de ciências. Enseñanza de las ciências, 12(2), 188-199. Disponível em:<Disponível em:https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Ensenanza/article/view/21357 >. Acesso em:06/06/2021.
  » https://www.raco.cat/index.php/Ensenanza/article/view/21357
• Geraldi, João W. (2012). Heterocientificidade nos estudos linguísticos. In GEGe - UFSCar (Orgs.). Palavras e contrapalavras - enfrentando questões da metodologia bakhtiniana(pp.19 - 39). São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores.
• Giroux, Henry. (1997). Os professores como intelectuais Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas.
• Giroux, Henry, & Mclaren, Peter. (2002). Formação do professor como uma contra-esfera pública: pedagogia radical como uma forma de política cultural. In Antônio. FMoreira, & Tomaz. T. Silva (Orgs.). Currículo, cultura e sociedade (pp. 125 - 153). 7. ed. São Paulo: Cortez.
• Gonçalves, Suzane R. V., Mota, Maria R. A., & Anadon, Simone, B. (2020). A resolução CNE/CP n. 2/2019 e os retrocessos na formação de professores. Formação em movimento, 2(4), 360-379. <https://doi.org/10.38117/2675-181X.formov2020.v2i2n4.360-379>
  » https://doi.org/10.38117/2675-181X.formov2020.v2i2n4.360-379
• Kramer, Sônia. (2013). Educação como resposta responsável: apontamentos sobre o outro como prioridade. In Maria T. A. Freitas. Educação, arte e vida em Bakhtin (pp. 29-46). Belo Horizonte: Autêntica Editora.
• Kuenzer, Acacia Z. (2002). Conhecimento e competências no trabalho e na escola. Boletim Técnico do SENAC, 28(2). Disponível em: <Disponível em: https://www.bts.senac.br/bts/article/view/539 >. Acesso em: 06/06/2021.
  » https://www.bts.senac.br/bts/article/view/539
• Kuenzer, Acacia Z. (2011). A formação de professores para o ensino médio: velhos problemas, novos desafios. Educação e Sociedade, 32(116), 667-688. <https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302011000300004>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302011000300004
• Lavoura, Nicola T., Alves, Malina S., & Santos Junior, Cláudio L. Política de formação de professores e a destruição das forças produtivas: BNC-formação em debate. Revista Práxis Educacional, 16(37), 553-577. 2020<https://doi.org/10.22481/praxisedu.v16i37.6405>
  » https://doi.org/10.22481/praxisedu.v16i37.6405
• Leher, Roberto, & Motta, Vânia C. (2012). Políticas educacionais neoliberais e educação do campo. In R. S. Caldart et al. (Orgs.). Dicionário da Educação do Campo (pp.578 - 587). Rio de Janeiro: Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio.
• Magalhães, Maria C. C., Ninin, Maria O. G., & Lessa, Ângela B. C. T. (2014). A dinâmica discursiva na formação de professores: discurso autoritário ou internamente persuasivo. Bakhtiniana, 9(1), 129-147. <https://doi.org/10.1590/S2176-45732014000100009>
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S2176-45732014000100009
• Maldaner, Otávio A. (2000). A formação inicial e continuada de professores de química Ijuí: Ed. UNIJUÍ.
• Marandino, Martha, Selles, Sandra E., & Ferreira, Márcia S. (2009). Ensino de biologia: histórias e práticas em diferentes espaços educativos. São Paulo: Cortez.
• Maués, Olgaíses C. (2003). Reformas internacionais da educação e formação de professores. Cadernos de Pesquisa, 118, 89-117. < https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-15742003000100005 >
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-15742003000100005
• Miotello, Valdemir. (2005). Ideologia. In Beth Brait (Org.). Bakhtin: conceitos-chave(pp. 164 - 176). São Paulo: Contexto.
• Oliveira, Veronica B., & Jesus, Ana P. (2020). Fazendo a “racionalidade” tremer: notas disruptivas acerca da BNC-Formação. Série-estudos, 25(55), 31-50. <https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1494>
  » https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1494
• Pereira-Diniz, Júlio E., & Zeichner, Kenneth. M. (2017). A pesquisa na formação e no trabalho docente Belo Horizonte: Autêntica.
• Pires, Manuella A., & Cardoso, Lívia R. (2020). BNC para formação docente: um avanço às políticas neoliberais de currículo. Série-estudos, 25(55), 73-93. <https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1463>
  » https://doi.org/10.20435/serie-estudos.v0i0.1463
• Ponzio, Augusto. (2010). O pensamento dialógico de Bakhtin e de seu círculo como inclassificável. In Luciane Paula & Grenissa Stafuzza (Orgs.). Círculo de Bakhtin: teoria inclassificável(pp. 293-349). Campinas: Mercado de Letras.
• Santos, André V., & Ferreira, Marcia. (2020). Currículo Nacional Comum: uma questão de qualidade? Em Aberto, 33(107), 27-44. <https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6673.emaberto.33i107.4528>
  » https://doi.org/10.24109/2176-6673.emaberto.33i107.4528
• Scherma, Camila. C. (2017). A insondabilidade e o cotejamento como caminhos metodológicos e de compreensão. In GEGe - UFSCar. Palavras e contrapalavras - entendendo o cotejo como proposta metodológica (pp. 198-211). São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores.
• Shiroma, Eneida O., Michels, Maria H., Evangelista, Olinda., & Garcia, Rosalba M. C. (2017). A tragédia docente e suas faces. In Olinda Evangelista & Alan Henji(Orgs.). Formação de professores no Brasil: leituras a contrapelo (pp. 17 - 58). Araraquara: Junqueira & Martins.
• Silva, Tomaz T. (2010). Documentos de identidade: uma introdução às teorias do currículo 3. ed. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica Editora.
• Vauthier, Bénédicte. (2010). “Auctoridade” e tornar-se-autor: nas origens da obra do “círculo B.M.V”. In Luciane Paula & Grenissa Stafuzza (Orgs.). Círculo de Bakhtin: teoria inclassificável(pp. 89-114). Campinas: Mercado de Letras.
• Volochínov, Valentin. (2013). A construção da enunciação e outros ensaios São Carlos: Pedro & João Editores.
• Volóchinov, Valentin. (2017). Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem São Paulo: Editora 34.

• 1
  When we use the expression Bakhtinian thought we are not referring to Bakhtin's thought, this notion must be understood as a corpus of foundations coming from the constant interlocution among intellectuals that constitute the so-called Bakhtin Circle or Bakhtinian Circle. Thus, the ideas of that Circle that, in fact, is not Bakhtin's, in the sense that he is a "master" of the other intellectuals, must be understood as those of the Circle of which Bakhtin is a part, constituted by other intellectuals as important as him, such as, for example, Volochinov and Medvedev.
• 2
  Future memory (Bakhtin, 2011) points to the fact that it is with an image of the future that the actions of the present are qualified. It is an imagined future that, together with the situation of the present, limits the calculation of possibilities from which a certain action of being will be defined/chosen, an action that, together with others that will be necessary, is established in order to give a finish to the projected, to that memory.

• 11
  The translation of this article into English was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais - FAPEMIG, through the program of supporting the publication of institutional scientific journals.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 Mar 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  14 Oct 2021
• Accepted
  25 Sept 2022