The student-educator and the educator-in-service. A longitudinal study

This book is a synthesised version of a longitudinal study of a group of educators whose conceptions of childhood and educational guidelines were observed over a seven-year period, from the time they were students in their initial training at the Escola Superior de Educação de Setúbal to the time they were in-service educators in various contexts. The study puts the interviewees' discourse into dialogue, both with conceptions derived from academic discourse and with testimonies from the author's experiences as a trainer involved in both the theoretical side and in monitoring research projects carried out by the students during their internships in nursery schools and kindergartens. Closely related to the author's teaching activity and arising from a need felt in that practice, this study has the characteristics of an action-research-training. The study methods and conceptions of these former students in relation to the academic productions they carried out during their initial training were also analysed, allowing these methods and conceptions to be linked to the professional development of the interviewees.