Abstract:

This study aims to find out who are the teacher trainers currently working in Chilean universities, and what they believe about the possibilities of early literacy and math for children in poverty contexts. The interest in this population is based on the fact that teacher educators should prepare future teachers to work with the most vulnerable school children. In order to collect teacher educators’ beliefs, 124 teacher trainers were evaluated, 5 of which participated in a focus group and 119 answered two open questions, and two Likert scale questionnaires on beliefs about teaching and learning in poverty contexts.

The results show that:
1) Many teacher trainers have intermediate beliefs about what a vulnerable school is,
2) The epistemic stance practical evaluativism predominates between them,
3) Traditional beliefs about literacy teaching and early math were also frequent,
4) Those teacher educators who show complex epistemic beliefs about the stability of knowledge also have complex beliefs about family involvement with schools, and sophisticated ideas about essentialism about children from poverty backgrounds,
5) At the private universities without admission requirements the teacher educators predominately have a bachelor’s degree. In private colleges with entrance requirements the teacher educators predominately have a master's degree or bachelor’s degree. Finally, in the traditional universities there are an equal percentage of teacher educators with a bachelor’s degree, a master's degree and a PhD,
6) The academic degree is the only variable of teacher educators in which significant differences are found. Those with a PhD have significantly more complex beliefs than those with a masters or bachelor's degree.

The data shows that universities possess a variety of teacher educators whose beliefs are simpler when they do not have postgraduate studies. Meanwhile, universities still do not accelerate the process of incorporating doctors to academics. We are now dealing with a process of reproduction and consolidation of negative beliefs of poverty. A process of change and adequate preparation of future teachers to adequately address the challenges of achieving equity in access to early literacy and mathematics in children from poverty contexts would only be a dream.

Keywords:

Teacher educators, beliefs on teaching and learning, epistemic beliefs, poverty.