TEACHER AGENCY, TECHNOLOGIES AND QUALITY OF LIFE: WORDS FROM BASIC EDUCATION TEACHERS

Abstract

We present results from a qualitative, interpretive research aimed at investigating the meanings constructed by seven teachers regarding the contributions and challenges of digital technologies, at their interfaces with teacher agency and quality of life. The interviewees work in the early years of primary education in three public schools in the municipality of Campinas, São Paulo. The discussion of the data is anchored in Bakhtinian dialogical-enunciative theory and in contributions from critical perspectives on the interface between education and technology. The results indicate that the teachers were unfamiliar with the notion of teacher agency, which relates, among other aspects, to the normalization of practices that affect their quality of life when they take on extra demands. The data also indicates that the use of technologies in the classroom has become yet another responsibility centered on teachers' work, particularly regarding their technical training and pedagogical practice both inside and outside the classroom.