TEACHING IDENTITY CONSTITUTION IN DRAMATIZATION: DYNAMICS OF CONFLICTING POSITIONS

ABSTRACT.

This study aimed to investigate the process of teacher identity constitution of undergraduates through the dynamics of conflicting positions, narratives and dramatizations. This study is qualitative and has as perspective the cultural psychology in interface with Bakhtinian dialogism. As methodological procedure we used, for data construction, individual narrative interviews and video recordings for the elaboration and accomplishment of the dramatization, by the undergraduates themselves, besides the collective interview mediated by dramatization. For data organization, we elaborated tables of themes and subthemes and individual semiotic maps, articulated in a collective map. Then, we applied the dialogical thematic analysis of conversation, highlighting the themes of narratives and dialogical processes of positioning in conversational encounters. In data analysis, we identified conflicts in the dynamics of positioning and in the traditional and progressive teaching aesthetics of participants, which implies the process of constitution of teacher identity of the undergraduates by producing meanings and senses that guided their teaching activities.

Keywords:
Identity; positioning; conflict

RESUMO.

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar o processo de constituição identitária docente de licenciandos através da dinâmica dos posicionamentos em conflito, nas narrativas e dramatizações. Esta pesquisa é qualitativa e tem como perspectiva a psicologia cultural em interface com o dialogismo bakhtiniano. Para a construção dos dados, utilizamos como procedimento metodológico entrevistas narrativas individuais e videogravações da elaboração e realização da dramatização pelos próprios estudantes, além da entrevista coletiva mediada pela dramatização. Para a organização dos dados, elaboramos tabelas de temas e subtemas e mapas semióticos individuais, articulados em um mapa coletivo. Em seguida, aplicamos a análise temática dialógica da conversação, com destaque para os temas das narrativas e dos processos dialógicos dos posicionamentos nos encontros conversacionais. Identificamos, na análise dos dados, que aconteceram conflitos na dinâmica dos posicionamentos e nas estéticas docentes, tradicional e progressista, dos participantes; o que implica no processo de constituição identitária docente dos licenciandos ao produzirem significados e sentidos que orientaram as suas atuações docentes.

Palavras-chave:
Identidade; posicionamento; conflito

RESUMEN.

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo investigar el proceso de constitución de identidad docente de estudiantes de pregrado a través de la dinámica de posiciones, narrativas y dramatizaciones conflictivas. Esta investigación es cualitativa y tiene como perspectiva la psicología cultural en interfaz con el diálogo de Bakhtin. Como procedimiento metodológico utilizamos, para la construcción de los datos, entrevistas narrativas individuales y grabaciones en video de la elaboración y realización de la dramatización, por parte de los propios estudiantes, además de la entrevista colectiva mediada por la dramatización. Para la organización de los datos elaboramos tablas de temas y subtemas y mapas semióticos individuales, articulados en un mapa colectivo. Luego, aplicamos el análisis temático dialógico de la conversación, destacando los temas de las narrativas y los procesos dialógicos de posicionamiento en los encuentros conversacionales. Identificamos, en el análisis de datos, que los conflictos ocurrieron en la dinámica de las posiciones y en la estética de enseñanza tradicional y progresiva de los participantes. Esto implica el proceso de constitución de la identidad docente de los estudiantes de pregrado al producir significados y significados que guiaron sus actividades de enseñanza.

Palabras clave:
Identidad; posicionamiento; conflicto

Introduction

Each year, the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira - INEP, carries out the Census of Higher Education, which showed the continued predominance of 60.1% enrollments for bachelor’s degrees in relation to licentiate degrees, with 20.1% (Brasil, 2017). Also, according to the 2017 Census, enrollment growth in the 2007-2017 period for bachelor’s degrees was 65.6%, but for licentiate’s degrees, 49.7%. In addition, graduates of the bachelor’s degree were 62.5% against 21.1% of the licentiate degree (Brasil, 2017). The statistical data show a preference among students for bachelor’s degree programs rather than licentiate degree programs, and also a higher rate of bachelor’s degree students who completed the program, compared to licentiate degree students.

The search for a licentiate degree implies how the student perceives themselves as a teacher. In the context of teacher education, we highlight some studies (Livingston, 2014; Castañeda, 2014; Raymond, 2016; Leonenko, 2016). This formation is also related to experience and pedagogical practice (Izadinia, 2013; Graue et al., 2015) and to teaching identity (Bruin, 2016; Bathmaker & Avis, 2013; Trent, 2016).

This study aimed to investigate the process of constitution of teaching identity of undergraduates, considering that the permanence or withdrawal related to the licentiate degree, on how the undergraduate perceives themselves as a teacher, their educational and training context, as well as their teaching identity. Initially, we contextualized the scenario based on data related to federal institutions in the state of Maranhão, as the participants are from the Federal Institute of Maranhão - IFMA.

The interaction between teacher and student appears in the study by Livingston (2014) on the promotion of teacher professional development. It is a qualitative research, with the aim of acquiring a better understanding of the concept of identity and the role of the teacher (mentor) in the context of professional learning. Castañeda (2014), on the other hand, presents an investigation of how teachers perceived their professional identity during the internship between their belief system and knowledge, and the teaching community.

Raymond (2016) also investigated the teacher’s identity in the profession in a qualitative study, which aimed to explore the identity of physical education teachers in Hong Kong’s primary school. Six men and three women, between 25 and 59 years old, participated in the research. As a data construction procedure, a semi-structured interview was used. For data analysis, the transcription of the interview, analysis of the identified categories and line-by-line coding of the transcribed data was carried out.

Another investigation on identity involving physical education teachers was carried out by Leonenko (2016), which aimed to support the training model of the future physical education teacher aimed at promoting an education with a patriotic profile to high school students. Izadinia (2013) reported the implications of the individual’s experience and the sense of agency for the construction of their teaching identity. This study aimed to investigate studies focused on undergraduates, about the teaching identity. Graue et al. (2015) reported that the teachers’ identities enabled pedagogical connections and knowledge production. Thus, what the research emphasized was that identity and pedagogical experience are linked to teaching action.

Bruin (2016) highlighted that the individual’s personal identity and professional performance are not dissociated. Bathmaker & Avis (2013) stated that the teacher reformulates their identity based on pedagogical practices. Trent (2016) stated that the teacher’s identity is related to a process of construction in discourse and carried out in practice.

This study is supported by cultural psychology in interface with Bakhtinian dialogism (2011). From this perspective, psychic processes are related to sociocultural and historical processes. The experience in the cultural world is based on the relationship between the individual and the social in a process of sharing meanings in culture, which can change the positions taken by individuals (Zittoun, 2008). Therefore, we start from the positioning theory (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999; Harré, 2015) and the concept of the aesthetic of the self (Borges, Araújo, & Amaral, 2016; Borges, Versuti, & Piovesan, 2012) as a way of understanding the constitution of teaching identity of undergraduates from their verbal interactions in dramatization activities and collective interviews. Studies on the positioning of teachers and students have been frequently carried out in research on teacher identity, including in relation to conflicts (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018).

The positioning theory highlights the enunciation processes of narratives with the rescue of episodes of verbal interaction (Deppermann, 2015). In verbal interactions, the movement of positioning makes new stories emerge (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018).

Positioning dynamics

The individual as an agent takes positions in the context of a specific moral order of speech. In the moral order, discursive processes occur that are related to positions of identity (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018) that may be in conflict. Positioning can be intentional or tacit. Not necessarily in all situations we can explicitly identify intentional positioning of participants in the interlocution. This can be done with tacit positions, which are related to a moral context (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999). Context that can even be built in a staging.

There are four types of intentional positioning: a) deliberate self-positioning, b) forced self-positioning, c) deliberate positioning of others, and d) forced positioning of others, and can occur simultaneously (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2014) in a dynamic interaction (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018). James (2014)comments that in deliberate self-positioning, the individual expresses their identity through self-awareness and agency, which implies an action mediated by meanings, including the use of personal pronouns in a sociocultural context of autobiographical narrative. The positioning of the self happens when the individual appreciates themselves as an object when using the pronoun ‘I’ in the narrative of their life story, as a mediator of actions, for which they believe they are responsible or not (James, 2014).

Harré & Van Langenhove (1999) and James (2014) comment that, different from deliberate self-positioning, there is forced self-positioning that involves another person in the interlocutory situation. In this case, the individual feels forced to stand in front of the other. In addition to self-positioning, there are the positions of others that can be deliberate or forced (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2014). Deciding on the positioning of others occurs when someone present or absent is the target of a value judgment. Positioning is endowed with voices that participate in an intense, dynamic and complex dialogic process (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999). Voice is an utterance addressed to the other that expresses an axiological position. The dialogical dynamics, between the voices of individual positioning, produces statements (Bakhtin, 2011)

Statements, according to Bakhtin (2016), are dialogical phenomena, such as speech acts in an intersubjective dialogic relationship with other utterances (Bakhtin, 2011) that provoke the responsiveness of the other. Responsiveness is an active understanding of the other’s utterance when elaborating another utterance in response to its interlocutor/recipient, which may be related to the aesthetic finish elaborated by the individual on their interlocutor (Bakhtin, Bakhtin, 2011, 1993). The aesthetic finish constitutes a fictitious other with the optical deception of the perception of a spaceless soul, since only the other can gather it and contain it in an external image; that is the aesthetic finish. The image can be a surplus of the individual vision of the other. Bakhtin (2011) states that the excess of vision is seeing beyond what the individual can perceive of themselves, what is possible from an exotopic place. Exotopy has the sense of an external place (Amorim, 2016), in a semiotic space on the borders of language between the self and the other. Speech is always addressed to one another in a chronotope. The concept of addressing is a directing from the one who speaks to the one who speaks, it is the incorporation of the vision of the other in the enunciation itself, therefore such concept affirms the notion proposed by Harré and Van Langenhove (1999) of positioning and extends the perspective of speakers and of ideological power.

In the exotopic place, the individual elaborates an aesthetic finish of their interlocutor by making use of a style to enunciate what, in an intervening way, the individual sees in the other’s gaze (Bakhtin, 1993; Amorim, 2016). Therefore, there is the need for the other to elaborate a totalizing image, full of values of whoever is in front of them, which is the aesthetic finish.

Bakhtin’s concept of aesthetic finish supports the concept of the aesthetic of the self (Borges et al., 2016) that we adopted in our investigation on identity. Based on this concept, we recognize that the constitution of identity as an aesthetic of the self happens when the individual appropriates the aesthetic finish that the other elaborated on them (Bakhtin, 2011) and is built in social interaction. This, based on a surplus of vision of an exotic place on the semiotic frontier, in a dialogic process. The semiotic border is a place of interpretation of the individual, in relation to culture (Americo, 2017), and it is where the displacements of the self happen towards the other, in an exotopic movement. Individuals in cross-border cultural contacts perceive themselves to be different from others and position themselves in a dynamic of interactions in the semiotic space (Americo, 2017).

Thus, positionings are assumed in an ethical-aesthetic context and are shared in a culture. Positioning linked by meanings that operate as links between them (Borges & Barbato, 2015).

Experience and aesthetics of the self

In the sociocultural context, positionings participate in a communicative action, as an experience (Rosa & González, 2013), and among the different experiences of the individual, the one that qualitatively distinguishes from the others is the one that is aesthetic. An aesthetic experience takes place from objects and aesthetic actions, which can be, for example, the construction of a staging. In the study by Rosa and González (2013), an investigation is presented, with three professional actors pretending to be students in the classroom, with the aim of investigating the dynamics of positioning in conflict with everyday life experiences. In the study, twenty-four young adults participated in a simulated conflict, without being informed, to investigate how they would construct meanings from this experience.

Experience is a process of intentional awareness, which has a sense of agency (Adams & Gupta, 2017) with the purpose of action carried out by acting individuals. Therefore, it enables the apprehension of meaning with a personal sense (Rosa & González, 2013) and leads the individual to the development of identity. From a Bakhtinian perspective, social interaction in semiotic spaces bordering experience enables the constitution of the individual through otherness (Faraco, 2017). Interconnections between meanings in the border of semiotic space are the basis of dialogical communication, which underlies the processes of construction of meaning, which take place in polyphony (Borges & Barbato, 2015).

Individuals in cross-border cultural contacts perceive themselves to be different from others and position themselves in a dynamic of interactions in the semiotic space (Américo, 2017). It is in this space that the individual constitutes their identity as an aesthetic of themselves through interlocutory meetings, in a single event, which provide for the elaboration of the aesthetic finish of the other (Bakhtin, 2011). The aesthetic of the self is a semiotic process of identity constitution (Borges et al., 2016) and the construction of the experience of the act. The act is a real experience in a context impregnated with values that are related to aesthetics (Bakhtin, 1986/1993), which takes place in a border semiotic process that can be crossed by ideological conflicts.

When considering how experience is related to a border process of semiotic negotiation (Arvaja, 2016) that implies the individual identity, we cannot disregard that experience is related to meanings. By producing meanings, experience constitutes a semiotic process that develops over time.

Meanings change the notion of time, they are shared through social norms and can cause changes in positionings taken by individuals (Zittoun, 2008). In this way, the experience also implies an impact on identity (Mcdonald, Craig, Markello, & Kahn, 20166), including in stressful situations. An example is the development of the academic identity of teachers in processes of dynamic interaction with students that produce positions and meanings related to teaching practice. In the process of dynamic interaction, individuals develop their experiences in the sociocultural context. In which, meanings are built, related to conflicts, which imply the process of constitution of the teacher’s identity.

Methodology

The research we developed has a qualitative nature and the aim of the research was to investigate the process of teaching identity constitution of undergraduates, through the dynamics of conflicting positioning, in self-confrontation interviews and dramatizations, based on the positioning theory and the concept of aesthetics of the self. Four women students from the Licentiate Degree Program in Agricultural Sciences, Federal Institute of Maranhão - IFMA, between 25 and 48 years old, from the eighth period, who had already attended the supervised internship at the time of the research, participated in the research.

Four (4) individual narrative interviews were conducted. The information was related to four individual narrative interviews carried out before the dramatization process, on the theme ‘being a teacher’. Bauer and Gaskell (2002) state that the narrative interview aims to encourage the participant to talk about their life story in an unstructured and in-depth manner. Then we made (3) three video recordings: 1) related to the elaboration of the dramatization script; 2) the dramatization itself and 3) the self-confrontation collective interview mediated by dramatization, about this research experience. This was constituted as feedback from the research to the participants. About the dramatization itself (see Table 2).

Table 1
Situations and positions in the actual videotaping

Videogravações	Situações	Tempo/Gravação	Posicionamentos
Videogração 1 (Professora Tradicional)	Apresentação e orientações da professora tradicional à turma	00:00,00-02:00,03	Posicionamento docente monológico
	Indiferença e rigidez da professora tradicional na relação com os alunos	02:00,03-04:20,03	Posicionamento docente indiferente à aluna
	Relacionamento distante da aluna	04:20,03-07:00,03
	Aluna chegou atrasada e explicação junto ao quadro do assunto da aula	07:00,03-09:30,00	Posicionamento docente de negociação
	Identificação dos faltosos e apresentação da proposta de avaliação	07:00,03-11:30,03	Posicionamento distante das alunas
Videogração 2 (Professora Progressista)	Entrada da professora progressista e apresentação das alunas	00:00,00-02:00,00	Posicionamento dialógico
	Contextualização do conteúdo da aula e empatia com as alunas	02:00,00-03:30,03	Posicionamento empático
	Aula dialógica e aproveitamento do conhecimento da aluna	03:30,03-05:00,03	Posicionamento de valorização da aluna
	Recepção da aluna atrasada e exposição interativa do conteúdo	05:00,03-06:30,03	Posicionamento dialógico
	Interação dialógica e aprofundamento do conteúdo	06:30,03-09:30,03
	Utilização de recurso didático e reflexão crítica sobre o conteúdo da aula	09:30,03-13:30,03	Posicionamento crítico-reflexivo

• Source: The autors.

Data were organized through the elaboration of tables with themes from the individual narrative interviews, collective semiotic map, using the XMind 6 software, and the classification of video recordings every thirty seconds according to themes. For data investigation, we used dialogic thematic analysis of conversation. The analysis is thematic for identifying and analyzing the themes in the participant narratives; it is dialogic for identifying the interaction between the statements present in the student narratives; and it is from the conversation because it identifies the conversational dynamics of participants, in the dramatization and in the collective interview.

Table 1 presents the teaching positioning, in which the individual perceives themselves as a teacher; the empathetic position, in which there is an identification with the students; the dialogic positioning, with actions of valuing the utterance of the other, contrary to the monologic positioning that devalues this participation; the critical-reflective stance, with criticism of the content taught, in addition to the positions of valuing and distancing students.

Table 2
Table of interviews and video recordings of research participants

Participantes	Número de entrevistas	Tempo/Gravação	Número de Videogravações	Tempo de gravação
Talia	1	1h 09’10’’	Elaboração da Dramatização	43’22’’
Dulce	1	1h 01’20’’	Dramatização	25’35
Dalva	1	1h 07’09’’	Entrevista Coletiva	1h 55’
Luiza	1	1h 04’15’’
Total	4	4h 21’54’’		2h 8’

• Source: The authors.

In addition to the interviews and video recordings, (4) four individual tables and four (4) individual semiotic maps were built for each participant. Maps were articulated in a single map, from the themes organized in tables, for the purposes of presentation in this article, as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Mapa semiótico de posicionamentos e significados das estudantes de licenciatura

Individual narrative interviews and video recordings were transcribed verbatim. To quote the participants in the transcripts, we used the letters related to each pseudonym. The undergraduate students in agrarian sciences were: Talia (T), Dulce (D), Dalva (DA) and Luiza (L), pseudonyms. The dramatization had the participation of two extra students, student A and student B. Como codificação da transcrição utilizamos dois sinais: 1) ::: indicando uma longa extensão da vogal e 2) ... em referência a uma pausa curta.

Analysis of results and discussion

For data construction, after the participants elaborate the dramatization script, we made the video recording of the dramatization, itself, of the students. In it, the undergraduates organized a classroom, as a scenario for staging, on the premises of the institution itself, in which two classes were held, one related to a traditional teacher and the other to a progressive teacher, as they called it. In both classes, the camera was positioned between the teacher and the students, on the right side of the students who sat in front of the whiteboard. In the first class, the classroom was arranged in rows with the traditional teacher wearing a lab coat and sitting behind the table. In the second class, the students were in a circle and the progressive teacher did not wear a uniform and sat in another chair in front of the students.

After we videorecorded the dramatization, we conducted a self-confrontation interview mediated by dramatization. In it, we identified moments of conflict between the students’ teaching positions in relation to their characters. The conflict between the teaching positions of the undergraduates in the interview mediated by videorecording began with Dalva’s comment about the scene in which Luiza’s character draws the students’ attention in class, when Dalva comments: “[...] the teacher has to have autonomy to tell this student who is chatting that is hindering the learning of the other. In this sense, I [...] am [...] am in favor of [...]”, which she says when she perceives the value of autonomy permeating the traditional teacher’s teaching positioning.

Dalva’s statement when negotiating the acceptance of an aspect of what they criticized about the traditional teacher triggered a tension in the semiotic frontier among the students (Américo, 2017). It also provoked Talia’s responsiveness, in a dialogue that took place in the chronotope of the interview, when the dramatization’s past was updated in the undergraduates’ dialogic process, in a movement that produced new meanings related to their teaching aesthetic constitution. After Dalva’s comment, Luiza presented an ethical-aesthetic bond with her character, in responsiveness to Dalva, by taking a deliberate positioning on herself (James, 2014) using the pronoun I when she said: “[...] but ‘I’ think that::: if it’s to draw attention that it’s not in an arrogant way. ‘I’ was practically too arrogant [...]” (emphasis added).

Luiza’s deliberate positioning, in linking to the character, by using the pronoun I to express her arrogance, contributed to a dynamic dialogic interlocutory process between her and Dulce. Dulce took a forced position on Luiza (1.2) as a traditional teacher; thus, it was no longer about the character they were talking about, but about Luiza herself, in a movement of tension in the transition from dramatization to real life through an experience that is aesthetic, which linked the character to the individual and produced conflict. As we can see in the turns of the speech below, after Luiza’s speech, in which she stated that she was arrogant:

D: Seeks to study more educational psychology theorists this year

L: Who?

D: You::: (1.2) to know how to treat students ((referring to Luiza))

L: Not me! The teacher Ana Lu ((character of the traditional teacher))

D: Yes, it’s the character ((laughter))

L: Ana Lu... Ana Lu... (1.3) there, it’s not Luiza it was Ana Lu ... (1.4).

The ideological orientation of agricultural science undergraduates is to value the teacher-student relationship. The main aspect of this relationship is the dialogic process guided by different meanings from one individual to another (Borges & Barbato, 2015). In the case of Luiza, the value that stands out is respect, for Dalva it is help, Talia is didactic and Dulce is critical knowledge, which we identify in their individual narratives.

The relationship between teacher and student occupies the semiotic focus of the students’ narrative process. We realized that the main difference they built between the traditional teacher and the progressive teacher is the interaction with the student. Dalva commented on the traditional teacher character in the self-confrontation interview mediated by dramatization, saying that “[...] she had to call the student’s attention, she couldn’t hold the student’s attention to her [...]”. The expression ‘holding the student’s attention’ worked as a guiding meaning of the teaching activity with a sense of action (Rosa & González, 2013) focused on the student-teacher interaction. The absence of teacher-student interaction caused Luiza’s conflict in relation to her character, which, unlike her, Talia highlighted as an advantage of the character she acted. As we can see in the conversation below:

T: Luiza’s character uses... (2.1) coercion, she kind of coerced, embarrassed the student and behaviorism, for example, in the liberating pedagogy I talk here about Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, with the other teacher ( (she talks about her character with the progressive teacher)), no, she ‘encourages’ the student to participate in the class it’s::: it’s .., (2.2) it ‘encourages’, he who... he’s the one ... (2.3) it’s the center of attention, that he is that::: (2.4) that his knowledge is valid. She makes that... that... (2.5) link, because sometimes there are people who... (2.6) have students who... (2.7) ‘ah! What I am going to say is not necessary, what I say is not important’.

D: It’s not important

T: No! So, she ‘takes advantage’ of every part of what the student is talking about, she ‘takes advantage’ of it. So, she u:::ses (2.8) the knowledge he has... he has... the... (2.9), right? Common sense, baggage and it transforms into scientific::: (2.10) knowledge and she works with that. So, her response style is this. The answer she has is... is... (2.11) the student who ‘participates’, who ‘builds’, the one who partici... is ... (2.12) who ‘builds’, right?

[...]

D: Neither... nor... (2.13) to the multimedia projector itself

T: Even on the multimedia projector, she was with the clothes she was wearing is::: (2.14) with her ‘hair down’, she didn’t fit that pattern, right? In that pattern that::: which is ... (2.15) that society requires and::: (2.16) she’s not::: it’s... (2.17) directly linked to the framework, she brought new resources, she used the multimedia projector

[…]

D: He asked the students to speak

T: Yes, she::: (2.18) used music, so they are current things, right? Things that::: that... (2.19) circulate that world of young people in order to... (2.20) build... build... (2.21) the class (emphasis added).

The quote from the collective interview, above, presented (21) twenty-one points of tension as Talia highlighted the aesthetics of her character. This, when commenting on the shape of her hair down as an aesthetic element of relaxation for the teacher-student relationship, in relation to this, she said at another time: “[...] now you don’t know, your [...] your [...] character had her hair tied, tied back, and this teacher has her hair down [...]”. Another difference that has a relational character, Talia perceives herself, in the teaching positioning of her character, as a teacher who interacts with the students (2.11 and 2.12) and differentiates her from Luiza’s character, in the alternation of speech shifts with Dulce, who positioned herself in supporting Talia’s argument. In the argumentation, Talia presented the positioning of a progressive teacher, through the recurrent use of meanings, which qualified her dialogic process with the students in the dramatization, using the words in bold: stimulate, enjoy, participate and build. This is the aesthetics of the progressive teacher (Borges et al., 2016) in dramatization.

After Talia’s comment about the aesthetics of a teacher who interacts with students, a semiotic negotiation took place (Arvaja, 2016) on the border between Talia and Luiza. When Luiza, after saying that the traditional teacher did not interact and was attached to the table (2.17), and that the progressive teacher even used music as a resource (2.18) to interact, she performed a semiotic movement in the rescue of an action by the traditional teacher, that until then she had not realized even acting the traditional teacher.

T: [...] I also found it interesting, for example, when we arrive late in the classroom, we get lost, right? It gets that...(3.5)

L: It’s true

T: I hate to be late, because I don’t::: (3.6) it seems like I can’t assimilate the class, that I missed half of the::: of the... (3.7) class. And::: (3.8) in the video, in our... in our... (3.9) part is::: (3.10) when::: the::: (3.11)

L: I

T: Ana Lu arrived late, in this case, when Luiza arrived late, she started::: yeah::: and... yeah... (3.12) interacting with the student, she started to insert her there in that context and started talking, she explained, she made a small summary of what had already happened so that that student could also not feel excluded is::: from::: from... (3.13) class.

The ideological conflict in Talia’s statement suggests her use of a dialogic strategy to promote empathy with Luiza. Empathy that is aesthetic, as it allows oneself to be in the other’s shoes and in which sympathy is a condition, with no coincidence between the self and the other, but with an active identification between them (Bakhtin (2011). This happened when producing a movement in which she took a deliberate positioning (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1999; James, 2014) about Luiza’s character and elaborated an aesthetic finish for her, as a teacher who also interacted with the student at some point. What happened when commenting the situation in which she summarized the class so that the student did not feel excluded, a positioning that required a semiotic effort from Talia, as indicated in tension 3.13, and inserted a dialectical contradiction in the interlocution.

The construction of empathy in the border dialogue between Talia and Luiza guided the dialogic actions of the conversation towards a point of convergence. When the two students recognized that their characters had attitudes similar to those of their teachers (4.1). Which indicates the following excerpt:

T: This profile, this way and I see a lot... a lot... (4.1) of my teachers,

L: In both videos

[…]

T: In both

L: we see a lot of the::: (4.2) of our teachers, right? That::: (4.3) have already passed and that they are with us today.

Students Talia and Luiza gave intensity to the comparison between their characters and their teachers, as indicated by tensions 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. When Luiza claims to see a lot of her teachers in the role of the dramatization teacher characters, she expresses tension (4.2).

The semiotic constitution of the experience of seeing the dramatization they carried out caused a conflict between the teaching positioning of the undergraduates (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018), with the aesthetics of the traditional teacher. It was also a pleasant thing for the participants. As Luiza said: “[...] It was nice to see the video, right? [...]” and Talia also commented that “[...] regarding the research I found it valid, quite valid and I [...] I [...] liked it, yeah::: for the effort we made [...]”.

Related to the conflict between teacher aesthetics, which Luiza had with the traditional teacher character in the staging, she commented:

[...] Yeah... (5.1) as I said, right? I felt ‘uncomfortable’ watching my own video, I felt very ‘uncomfortable’, it is::: (5.2) ok, it was a::: interpretation, but I watching it here now I::: I ... (5.3) no I want to be a teacher like that, I don’t even see myself like that, guys... (5.4) for God’s sake, right? It’s::: (5.5) it becomes like a monotonous class, right? The students don’t have that dialogue with... with... (5.6) the teacher, there isn’t that relationship, right? Friendship [...]. (Luiza) (emphasis added).

For Luiza, the dialogic process with the student is constituted by the values of friendship. Value that caused tension in her, which we identified when she repeated the statement that she felt uncomfortable (5.2) when watching her interpretation in the staging. This suggests that the relationships between the characters were appropriated by the actors when they reflected on their distances and approximations with their performances (5.3 and 5.4) in the staging. Unlike Luiza, Talia said that she felt comfortable playing a progressive teacher, which we can see in her words, when she says:

[...] And I said: ‘Wow, I felt comfortable in this position’, the teacher I played, right? It’s the teacher I want to be, an open teacher, a teacher that the student has access to, that the student trusts and that brings education as a process of construction between the teacher and the student and not making the student become the artisan of knowledge construction and not a mere deposit, right? And... and... (6.1) I liked it, I said: ‘Wow, I felt comfortable in this... in this... (6.2) role’ I liked it because it took us out of the... of the... (6.3) comfort zone [...]. (Talia) (emphasis added).

As Talia commented, she felt comfortable with her character’s positioning in dramatization, as it is related to the teaching aesthetics of which it is constituted. Luiza and Talia’s relationship with their characters was different. Luiza presented a conflict between the positions, that of her character and that of the undergraduate; however, with Talia there is a convergence, as we see when she said she liked (6.1) and felt comfortable (6.2), with a concluding intonation of her utterance. Thus, what happened in the interview process mediated with dramatization was a semiotic conflict between two teacher aesthetics, traditional and progressive, which provoked a dynamic of student positions in the conversation (Kayi-Aydar & Miller, 2018; Deppermann, 2015) about the staging at the collective interview. This movement between the positions produced meanings related to the constitution of each teacher’s identity in the chronotope, space-time, of the collective interview mediated by dramatization.

Final considerations

The research carried out, with the objective of investigating the process of identity constitution of four undergraduates, focused on the dynamics of teachers’ positioning and, on the aesthetics, related to them, present in collective interviews and in videotaped dramatizations. In this work, we present the analysis of the collective interview mediated by dramatization and the performed dramatization. The collective interview mediated by the drama, which the students themselves constructed, provided a significant amount of information on how they interpreted this experience of participating in the dramatization.

There were conflicts and tensions between the students’ teaching positions, one of them in their relationship with their teacher characters, with Luiza diverging from her character and Talia identifying with hers. Conflicts that directly involved the process of teaching identity constitution of the undergraduates by producing meanings that guided their teaching actions, even in a context of conflict.

Another conflict was related to the duality between the traditional and the progressive teacher, which went through semiotic negotiations on the border between the students. This implied an aesthetic conflict from which this duality was tensioned and new meanings, about the traditional teacher’s aesthetics, were produced. The shift from one critical teaching position to another, in relation to a specific teaching aesthetic, with its ideological conflicts, could be seen in the dramatization that the undergraduates built.

The research contributes to understand how the conflicts about teachers’ aesthetics, present in the dynamics between different positions, in relation to teachers’ aesthetics, imply in the teacher’s identity constitution. We can also identify how semiotic negotiations, articulated in conflict contexts, can promote new meanings about the teaching performance, causing alterities and displacements of the self. A strength of the research was the significant set of information and the use of dramatization. The point of limitation was that we did not further explore the conflicts between other positions taken in the dramatization performed, as we concentrated our analysis on the collective interview mediated by dramatization, and not on the dramatization itself, but which can be investigated in new studies.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Oct 2022
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  15 Feb 2020
• Accepted
  10 Aug 2020