This paper aims at analyzing the central role played by the concept of competences in the curricular reform in the Brazilian teacher education, in the 1990s. Drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, competences are understood as a recontextualized concept. Based on official documents, we analyze the global and local relations that promoted the control on the teachers' professionalization through a competence-based teacher education. The different ways to apply this concept to the curriculum history, especially as concerns teacher education, are also explored, as well as the viewpoints they brought for teacher education in Brazilian recent history.
Competences; Curriculum; Teacher education; Recontextualization