Abstract:

Even though literacy is one of the core goals of the current curriculum, results of various evaluations have shown a performance below expectations (MINEDUC, 2013). Educational achievements are determined by social origin, family income, mechanisms of student selection with shared financing in an aspirational social context, and the scarceness of good quality teachers (Senate, 2012). It has not been possible to transform this segregated educational system in a mechanism that promotes equity.

Several initiatives have addressed the problems of education in poverty contexts. From this perspective, it becomes relevant to study the beliefs of the different educational actors, both in terms of content and processes with the potential to generate transformations. Beliefs are the main interpretative framework to confront the educational scene. It directly acts on the practices. These findings are increasingly being considered in the area of initial teacher education research. Several studies show the negative beliefs that students and teachers have about the teaching and learning of literacy with students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Stevens and Palinscar, 1992; Condemarín, 2002, Roman, 2003; Raczynski and Muñoz, 2005; Rosales, 2008).

The present study aimed to characterize the beliefs of in-service teachers, teacher educators, and student teachers about the teaching and learning of literacy in poverty contexts. To this end, the literature on the beliefs held by these actors was reviewed. Focus groups were conducted to identify these beliefs in the Chilean educational system. The process was completed with the construction and validation of an instrument that was applied to a sample of 368 students, 678 in-service teachers in vulnerable schools and 82 teacher educators. Descriptive statistical analyzes were performed and the three groups were compared in terms of types of beliefs. The group of in-service teachers was further analysed by considering demographic and contextual variables.

The results showed that student teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators differ significantly in their beliefs about teaching and learning of literacy in poverty contexts. Depending on their belonging to one group or another, their beliefs are qualitatively different. In general, in-service teachers are the group with the most stereotyped beliefs. Within this group, the differentiating variables are professional title, university of origin, and years of experience. These results are expected, considering that initial and continuing education training programs are lacking in enough formative instances in the field of poverty, being, as they are, focused mainly in the processes of teaching and learning. This is relevant in the light of another of our results, which indicates that poverty beliefs directly affect teaching and learning beliefs. Interestingly, the variables “type of establishment”, “socioeconomic group”, and “results on standardized national tests” do not establish differences regarding the beliefs held by in-service teachers in the studied dimensions.

These findings suggest that the theme of poverty should be included in the preparation of both future generations of teacher educators and in-service teachers’ continuous education.

Keywords:

In-service teachers, beliefs about teaching and learning, literacy, poverty contexts.