Education Research Journal Vol.

6(9): 162 - 166, September 2016

Available online at http://resjournals.com/journals/educational-research-journal.html
ISSN: 2026-6332 2016 International Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Culture and Teacher Training

Yara A. F. Guimares
Center for Natural and Human Sciences, Federal University of ABC, Brazil

Corresponding Author Email: yara.guimaraes@ufabc.edu.br

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to discuss culture in the context of teacher training. We discussed theoretically
the concept of culture and how this culture is inherent in the teacher training process. With this direction, we
discuss how social interactions and the elements of disseminated culture in degree courses influence of
teacher training and development of teacher professional identity. This is a theoretical research, based on the
relevant literature. Thus, our focus on analysis is the social interactions with the culture developed in the
course and how this interaction promotes teacher training. We believe that culture not only mediates the
identity processes during teacher training but also establishes implications for the curriculum of the
Undergraduate. We argue that analyzing teacher training courses from the perspective of social relationships
and identities through interactions with culture, is a powerful interpretive device. This interpretation allows us
to understand and analyze the teacher training and mainly find new options to advance in theoretical and
practical discussions about the curriculum.

Keywords: Culture, teacher training, identity, the circuit of culture, curriculum.

Introduction So, the culture not only mediates the identity

Teacher training is an important time to establish the
social significance of the teaching profession and to
form new identifications from the perspective of
teachers. The undergraduate can provide an opportunity
for review of the traditions in teaching. This training can
be characterized by the intentional incorporation of
certain elements of culture, historically accepted,
determined by power struggles and representing the
training needs emerging from a given social context and
historical moment. Consequently, we consider that the
teacher training courses may represent a building space
of a professional identity and can provide the necessary
conditions for the development of the autonomy of
teaching.
Courses of teacher training are constituted through a
process of interaction between the participants
(teachers, students, etc.) and the elements of culture
that has been historically constructed and systematized
in the undergraduate. This dimension of the teachers
training process is established not only by the nature of
the relationship that individuals have with the curriculum
(Apple, 1990), but also through the explicit concepts
and/or implicit in culture and their circulation into the
course.
processes during teacher training but also establishes
implications for the curriculum in the Undergraduate.
Thus, our aim at this work is to think about culture in the
context of teacher training. We chose a theoretical
approach to discuss in this paper (Erickson, 1986). With
this direction, we discuss how social interactions and the
elements of disseminated culture in degree courses
could influence teacher training and development of
teacher professional identity.
Our focus on analysis is the social interactions with
the culture developed in the course and how this
interaction promotes teacher training. Thus, we chose to
discuss theoretically how culture is inherent to social life
and how it permeates the training of teachers. We did a
literature review and we based our considerations on the
work of authors who follow this investigative line. Culture
has taken a central role in the ways which society is
organized. Therefore, the identification element in a
social group that is united in support of teacher training
has culture as a negotiating agent in interpersonal
relationships. Culture is produced and consumed within
the group through social interactions. So the question of
culture is essential in understanding the identity and the
training of teachers (Grant, 1997). We have culture as
discussion link and also as an analytical context.

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Discuss culture in teacher education involves discuss
the course, its context, its specificities and the
complexity of their social relations.
We understand that throughout his teacher training
the apprentice learns when interacts with the cultural
elements disseminated in degree. It is the experience of
becoming a teacher and influences the development of
their ideology and their representations Hall (2009).
Thus, culture is a human production. We are always in
process of cultural appropriation (Hall, 1997a). We
became us teachers through the culture. We believe that
the identities emerge from the relationship (social and
symbolic) with a group always mediated by cultural
tools. In this sense, we can say that the representations
and social identities express the reality that makes up
the society and its culture (Hall, 1997b). So Being a
Teacher is much more than just gets an undergraduate
diploma.
We have argued that analyzing teacher training
courses from the perspective of social relationships and
identities through interactions with culture is a powerful
interpretative device. This interpretation allows us to
understand and analyze the teacher training and mainly
find new options to advance in theoretical and practical
discussions about the curriculum.
The Centrality of Culture
The anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in 1871 was
one of the first to define culture in a broader perspective,
as we understand today. According to him the culture
would be one complex whole, which includes
knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society (Tylor, 1871, p. 1). In this context,
culture is a human construction, mediates social,
intellectual and artistic interactions and is ever
unfinished or in process.
Culture is necessary to make possible the diversity
into unity of mankind. Culture is what allows man to
Figure 1: The Circuit of Culture, Du Gay et al. 1997.
adapt to the environment and makes possible the nature
transformation. In this sense there is a direct correlation
between what is thought to be cultural identity and the
conception of what is culture (Hall, 1996). However, if on
the one hand, the social constructs us as individuals, on
the other; it is the interaction of individual subjectivities
that produces culture and tradition (Arendt, 1993).
The elements of culture are socially constructed and
historically shared; therefore the culture is an essentially
human and social construction. It allows man to identify
himself as individual, changes the nature and changes
yourself too (Hall, 1996). It is through interaction with the
culture that the individual identifies and socializes (Hall
1997a). For Du Gay et al. (1997) because or since
culture is a way of life, production and circulation of
meaning.
Du Gay et al. (1997) presented a method of thinking
about culture, using what they call the Circuit of Culture,
as shown in Figure 1. According to the authors, the
culture is theoretically emerging as significant element of
social mediation. The culture has been considered as
constituting the social world, as opposed to being
regarded as a mere reflection of economic or political
processes. Not only this, in recent years culture has
been promoted too altogether more important role as
theorists have begun to argue the cause of our the
source of all social practices are meaningful practices,
they are full fundamentally cultural (Du Gay et al., p. 2,
1997).
The Circuit of Culture is a methodological tool of
analysis to study the culture, production and
maintenance of social identities; a diagram of
interactions with culture. This system produces certain
meaning when certain individual or social group
interacts with a cultural artifact, thereby producing
identities associated with it (Woodward, 1997).
According to this conceptual framework to analyze and
understand the cultural artifact, is necessary to analyze
the processes of representation, identity, production,
consumption and regulation.
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The elements that constitute the Circuit of Culture
(production, consumption, regulation, representation and
identity) are aspects of social interactions and correlate
particular individual or social group to a set of different
social practices that are equivalent in the identity
development process (Hall, 1997b). There is, therefore,
no order of priority or hierarchy between these forms of
analysis. The interconnections of diagram represent an
interactive dynamics, the slightest change in any
component ends up influencing all the others. Such
interactions are not presented as absolute or essential,
but a necessity of existence or emergency contingencies
of the circumstances (Du Gay et al., 1997).
Each of the elements in the Circuit of Culture
represents a keyword for culture discussion For Du Gay
et al. (1997) the investigation of these characteristics
does not lead to a consensus about its definition or
importance. However, we can say that such action
promotes to ponder about on social interactions and
also on the interaction between the culture and the
elements in this circuit; and also to ponder about power
relations and hence the identities that emerge from
these interactions (Giddens, 1991). Following is a brief
discussion of each of the elements that make up the
Circuit of Culture.
Production: The production of culture is a social
construction, a practice of meaning construction through
the use of language. Conditional upon the sphere of
regulation and to some extent is driven by demand
(consumption).
Consumption: It is the purpose for which the culture is
produced. The sphere of consumption can develop new
forms of cultural significance and thus new identities.
This is because social practices of different groups may
use different meanings and promote social
differentiation of a specific cultural tool.
Regulation: Institutionalizes the rules of interaction with
the culture and the different forms of mediation through
cultural artifacts. The regulation establishes regulators of
social interactions through of production regulation rules
and standards consumption. It is a dynamic process and
often is disputed, includes power struggles involving
meanings, forms of subjectivity and identity.
Representation: Is the discursive process by which
culture takes meaning and is developed historically. It is
the system of significance of the identity. The
representation has the power to define the identity and
therefore ultimately occupy a prominent place in
theorizing about culture and identity.
Identity: It is linked to a representation of culture
expressed by particular social group. It is an effect, an
expression of a signification process of culture. The
identity is a way of being, acting and interacting in social
according to the historical and political context. It is
cause and effect of power struggles.
In context of teacher training the culture in curriculum
development is as a set of elements that are socially
constructed and historically has been shared by
individuals. The circuit of culture when analyzed from
the perspective of teacher training has the curriculum as
a cultural artifact of mediation and the identity of the
training course that emerges from this interaction is
essentially social, called Curriculum Identity (Guimares,
2014).
Teacher Training and the Question of Culture
With regard to curriculum and training of teachers we
consider that culture refers to the set of socially
constructed elements and historically has been shared
by the group. In this sense, culture is a construction
essentially human and social; result of work and
interaction of members of the course. It is worth
remembering that this perspective all cultures should be
considered, this is, the various forms of crops produced
and / or consumed in teacher training. Such specific
cultures, belonging to the body of knowledge scientific or
cultures belonging to the social group and make up the
cultural framework of professional training.
The curriculum in teacher training is a cultural choice
and can be understood as a pronounced practice for
several voices, although governed by the law from each
country. And so, if knowledge and culture are logical
conditions of teaching and teacher training, it is also
logical that his analysis materializes according to the
specific social conditions interaction that promotes their
development. The curriculum is a matter of culture as
any other human construction. Thus, the curriculum is
also a political activity because organizes the culture
and consequently the power relations and their influence
on the development of teacher identity. The culture
produced, shared and consumed in teacher training
courses is between what has been developed and what
it hopes to accomplish. The culture symbolizes a link
between the past and the future, in this case, between
tradition and the new in teacher education.
We consider that all curriculum content selection is
reflected in the social relations of social context of the
course. The culture setting and the selected knowledge
in curriculum of teacher education is not necessarily one
that is really present into the undergraduate degree or in
practice the teaching profession. The context of the
training of the teachers has its specificities; be the
knowledge declared and explicit in their legal documents
or the social interactions of the individuals who compose
it. The curriculum mediates social and cultural relations
within the teacher training course. In this perspective,
we seek to characterize the curriculum as a cultural
artifact.
Wertsch (1995) considers that man's relationship to
the world is not established through direct action, but it
is always mediated by instruments (tools) that are built
by man to serve as mediators of this relationship. The
cultural tool is the mediator between the subject and the
object. The cultural artifact is a tool that was imbued with
sense and meaning by group. In this sense, human
activity mediated by cultural tools enables conditions for
the transformation of the world, allowing humans
development of higher functions. So at the same time
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that human activity is a means of transforming the world
it is also factor for development of humanity.
Mediation is a dynamic process that is characterized
by intentionality activity (Wertsch, 1995). The element of
mediation of man's relations with the world, in turn, can
have two-way of action. It's called cultural tool when
externally oriented and directed to the control of nature
or sign when in an internal activity for appropriation of
culture and knowledge by the individual himself.
(Wertsch, 1995).
Thus, the curriculum can be considered a cultural
artifact because it is a sociocultural construction and is
impregnated with the senses and specific meanings of
the course to which it belongs. We affirm that when the
curriculum is theorized as a cultural artifact contributes
to both a broader understanding of the concept of
curriculum itself, and also for the understanding and
discussion of cultural identities that emerge from social
interactions mediated by it.
In course of teacher training the culture that is
conveyed, produced and consumed indicates what the
group considers to be publicly valuable to be
perpetuated. On the other hand, the curriculum also
represents what ways the group interacts with each
other. Such that discuss culture is equal discuss the
social processes that are developed in the course of
Teacher Training. Each institution or social group
develops and requires its own universe of practices and
meanings, that is, their own culture (Hall, 1997). The
teacher training course is a social group that is
integrated into an extensive network of representations
at different levels of action; such representations are
aimed at legitimizing the specific cultural elements of the
curriculum as a regulator of the teacher training.
Consequently, we believe that emerging certain
social identity when the group that makes up the course
interacts with the curriculum which is a cultural artifact.
In this sense, we can represent the diagram of Circuit of
Culture for teacher training, where the curriculum is the
cultural artifact with which the course participants
interact and identity that emerges from this context is
what we call Curriculum Identity (Guimares, 2014).
Thus, the social meanings express the synthesis of
cultural production circulating in the undergraduate
course and it is consumed. It is the result of the
historical path and is organized by systems of
regulation. The social representation reaffirms the power
relations printed in the course and is expressed by the
Curriculum Identity (Guimares, 2014).
Conclusion
Knowledge and culture are not organized just like a line
at a factory to assemble individuals who are expertly
trained and repeaters of specific techniques. If so, the
Education would be reduced to a direct and univocal
process; the research in education would subtracted
from its most primordial essence: the knowledge
construction.
Consume culture in a particular social group involves
taking each other for the culture that is produced and/or
shared; is to incorporate yourself in the traditions and
representations of the group. The consumption of
culture strengthens the belonging links and enables the
individual to take part in the production space. In this
way, consume culture conveyed in a teacher training
course is, among other things, take representations of
being a teacher. Thus, consume culture is closely
related to the form yourself as teacher.
We indicate out those historical processes for
maintaining the tradition according to the culture
conveyed in the teacher training is important to
strengthen identity ties of group. Our results indicate that
maintaining culture and traditions directed to teacher
training are also ways for the production of the new and
the innovation.
Culture is transformed according to the basis of
tradition. The culture is still a narrative chosen by the
group to describe him. It is the group's tradition that
develops and supports social representation which
embodies the Curriculum Identity. Tradition is this vision
of what is important and significant in the past and
culture and, therefore, must be perpetuate (Arendt,
1993). The tradition and the elements of the culture
shared by the group in the form of social representations
consolidate the culture conveyed in the course; when is
promoting the convergence of course objectives for the
teacher training and for maintaining their professional
identity.
In conclusion, we affirm that it is the clash between
individual perceptions and social representations with
the culture, the tradition and with the new in
undergraduate degree, of course, is improved its own
identity and becoming a Teacher. Try to become teacher
is hard and challenging work. Its requires free and
creative effort to absorb its culture of Being Teacher in
order to build a teaching professional identity. We argue
that analyzing teacher training courses from the
perspective of social relationships and identities through
interactions with culture, is a powerful interpretive
device, we hope. This interpretation allows us to
understand and analyze the teacher training and mainly
find new options to advance in theoretical and practical
discussions about the curriculum.
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