University extension

The concept, legal aspects, and accreditation of extension in undergraduate courses have changed based on its guidelines (^{BRASIL, 2018}), the relation of extension with teachers’ continuing education (^{BRASIL, 1996}, art. 43 included in 2015), and its curricula (^{BRASIL, 2014}). To understand this, we must revisit and contextualize some university extension principles due to its institutionalization.

Its first official milestone (^{BRASIL, 1968}) refers to the transmissivity and hegemony of the university over knowledge. However, in 1970, educator Paulo Freire’s ideas influenced measures to strengthen extension, culminating in a paradigm shift. The subject-object relationship in extension actions gained another configuration, going from a vertical to a horizontal relationship which should recognize its target audience as subjects of actions capable of exchanging knowledge with the university in a mutually benefitting dialogue (^{NOGUEIRA, 2000}).

The creation of the Fórum de Pró-Reitores de Extensão das Instituições Públicas de Educação Superior Brasileiras (Forum of Extension Pro-Rectors in Brazilian Higher Education Public Institutions - Forproex) in 1987 greatly furthered the institutionalization of extension courses as it defined its concept — later simplified into “an interdisciplinary educational, cultural, scientific, and political process which promotes the transformative interaction between university and other sectors of society” (^{FORPROEX, 2012, p. 28}), which still defines the understanding of university extension courses. The university chosen as field of research has also adopted it. Based on it, Forproex has worked to establish guidelines for extension (^{BRASIL, 2018}) and for topics discussing its conceptualization, social insertion, and curricularization.

The 2011-2020 Brazilian National Education Plan indicated that undergraduate students had to obtain 10% of their total credits in extension activities as a strategy to achieve its goal 12 — a goal it maintained for 2014-2024. The chosen university regulated, by a resolution of its Teaching and Graduation Council, its inclusion in 2013. In 2015, its pedagogy course updated its Pedagogical Course Project to comply with these regulations. In 2015, Law No. 9,394/1996 included a new objective related to basic education — training and qualifying its professionals and drawing these two school levels nearer each other — by developing extension activities (art.43, § VIII).

Legal and institutional initiatives favoring the accreditation of extension in undergraduate curricula have given rise to studies on the possible relations between extension and teacher training, such as Coelho (²⁰¹⁷), Kochhann (²⁰¹⁷), and Bonifácio and Santos (²⁰²⁰).

In this context, several studies have assessed the contribution of university extension to higher education professional training regarding the relations between universities, communities, and (in the case of teacher training), schools (^{ABREU, 2015}; ^{NOZAKI, 2012}; ^{SANTOS, 2014}), showing its high formative potential. Thus, we ask: how does extension relate to professional teacher training? More specifically: how can pedagogy students’ participation in university extension contribute to developing their training?

We focus on teacher training in extension courses by defining the conceptual bases guiding our concepts of teacher training in the next section.

Teacher education

Our investigation followed the concepts of teacher education in Zeichner (²⁰¹⁰); Zeichner, Payne, and Brayko (²⁰¹⁵); Zeichner, Saul, and Diniz-Pereira (²⁰¹⁴); and Nóvoa (²⁰⁰⁹, ²⁰¹⁷) as they defend a teacher education perspective under a horizontally constructed relation between university, school, and community in which its professional culture, investigative posture, and valorization of socially built knowledge constitute a new institutional place.

Zeichner (²⁰¹⁰) stresses the importance of teacher training which aims to expand the initial training locus to communities as fundamental to establish, maintain, and affirm an inseparable relation between education, teaching, learning, and society and recognize and value community knowledge. The author argues that an intersection of the borders among universities and schools can promote learning for both teachers in initial training and graduated professionals. However, for this space to fulfill these expectations, participants must assume a more egalitarian and less hierarchical status to include each other and favor the formation of knowledge by a horizontally democratic relation, only then characterizing a “third space”.

Zeichner’s (²⁰¹⁰) perspectives supporting this research coalesce around the defense of intertwining the boundaries between university and community spaces to favor the implementation of projects and partnerships intentionally aimed at training teachers and driven by the principle that all knowledge (academic, practical, professional, social, and political) matters and that teachers, rather than being trained only by academic knowledge, receive no knowledge without it. Thus, we look at the potential university extension shows to access idealized knowledge in spaces beyond its walls in a dialogical (rather than hierarchical) way in the university-community relation, as per Almeida and Sampaio (²⁰¹⁰).

Nóvoa (²⁰⁰⁹) claimed that the distance between universities and schools and their teachers constitutes one of the dilemmas in teacher training. Thus, the first measure the author recommends to ensure teachers’ professional development refers to an initiative to insert training into their profession by reflections on teaching itself, i.e., professional dilemmas will base the construction of theories to answer the questions challenging the reality of teachers’ work.

A second measure refers to the need to stimulate and pursue new ways of organizing the profession. For this, collegiality, sharing, and collaborative cultures among teachers, schools, universities, and public power would reduce the distance between training and the profession (^{NÓVOA, 2009}).

A third and final measure consists of the need to reinforce teachers’ personal dimension and explicit presence (^{NÓVOA, 2009}). In it lies the importance of personal knowledge in the professional one to establish that teaching is not only structured on a technical and instrumental basis, but also on identity and culture issues.

Furthering this understanding, Nóvoa (²⁰¹⁷) resorts to the meanings of position to represent five entries to teachers’ professional training, which we assumed as our categories of research analysis:

From the perspective of the alluded (dis)positions and the presence of extension in professional training, we asked if the programs, projects, courses, and extension events registered in the chosen university could favor the development of these five dimensions and demarcate the participation of extension in teachers’ training, as per Nozaki (²⁰¹²), Santos et al. (²⁰¹³), Santos (²⁰¹⁴), and Abreu (²⁰¹⁵).

Research methodology

We aimed to analyze how pedagogy course students’ participation in university extension can contribute to developing (dis)positions for their training. For this, extension programs, projects, courses, and events in the chosen institution were examined as an empirical field to locate and analyze those aimed at teacher training to understand, from the documentation of these actions and its participating subjects’ perspective, the contribution of this participation to develop (dis)positions to train teachers in a pedagogy course.

A two-stage research was chosen for this, the first of which mapped the extension actions registered in the chosen institution to train teachers. In the second one, interviews with subjects who carried out these actions in the chosen pedagogy course were conducted.

During the first stage, the Information and Project Management System of the institution, which recorded its extension actions, was used as a data source. Teacher education extension programs, projects, courses, and events were analyzed.

All 4,259 records in the system were perused. From a filter setting a time limit from 2016 to 2019⁵ and the validity of these records, this number was reduced to 2,002. Then, selection criteria only relating records aimed at teacher training were applied. Thus, our database was treated according to the following criteria: belonging to the education field; containing the expressions “formação de professores,” “formação docente” and or “formação continuada” (“teacher education,” “faculty education,” and/or “continuing education” in their keywords; having elementary schools as their places of implementation; and defining basic education teachers as their target audience. Thus, 78 actions were obtained.

We focused on extension programs and projects since they contemplate all extension guidelines and enable a more powerful approach toward the perspectives of teacher training dispositions and positions (^{NÓVOA, 2009}, ²⁰¹⁷). After mapping, three programs and eight projects were chosen for documentary analysis Chart1. By reading the registration forms synthesizing the proposals of the mapped programs and projects, content analysis was organized to seek indications of the development of (dis)positions in these documents based in our categories.

A two-part script was built for the interviews: the first to place subjects in their relationship with university extension and the pedagogy course; and the second one, to understand aspects related to their reasons for working with/participating in university extension, its openness to students, and how participation in extension activities can benefit teacher training.

Our data analysis was used to locate the actions that most evinced the development of (dis)positions, according to our created categories, among the three programs and the eight projects. Thus, six actions were chosen: PROG I, PROG II, PROG III, PROJ A, PROJ D, and PROJ E. The subjects involved in these actions were then evaluated. Project coordinators were interviewed first, indicating the pedagogy students actively participating in the assessed actions. In total, 10 subjects were contacted: six extension action coordinators (five professors and a technical-administrative professional) linked to PROG I (education technical-administrative professional), PROG II (professor), PROG III (professor), PROJ A (professor), PROJ D (professor), and PROJ E (professor); and four PROJ A (one), PROG II (one), and PROG III (two) students.

After transcribing and reviewing the interviews, coordinators and students’ testimonies were organized in tables. All statements with answers to the three questions aimed at the relation between extension, teacher training, and the pedagogy course were grouped in the first table. The excerpts from these statements that raised central aspects were included in the second table. These excerpts were set in a last organizational chart in columns which indicated the development of (dis)positions for teacher training.

The analysis of subjects’ perspectives on how university extension can contribute to developing teacher training (dis)positions within pedagogy courses was organized to seek evidence of their development in participants’ statements according to the categories created following Nóvoa (²⁰¹⁷).

University extension: between dispositions and positions

We observed that the three analyzed programs and eight extension projects could favor the development of dispositions related to “investigative recomposition and public exposition” in the initial training of the participating pedagogy students.

We found that these programs commit to communities, public policies, critical awareness, research, knowledge production, and reflection. Their activities propose moments with research and study groups, pedagogy students, and basic education teachers to achieve their goals. This finding agrees with Zeichner’s (^{2010, p. 493}) defense of the epistemological change in teacher training, in which “[…] different aspects of expertise that exist in schools and communities are brought into teacher education and coexist on a more equal plane with academic knowledge.”

We found that PROG I, PROG III, PROJ A, PROJ B, PROJ D, and PROJ E favored the development of dispositions regarding “professional interposition and pedagogical composition,” as per Chart2:

As they are closely linked to the teaching profession, these positions are developed in contact with teachers and in experiences at schools. We found that these actions establish relationships guided by dialogue with schoolteachers to support the learning of teachers in training.

This takes place at the same time as they provide experiences in schools, forming a triad integrating teachers, schools, and universities sharing the responsibilities of teachers’ initial training. These proposals value basic education teachers’ knowledge, recognizing that they play an important role in initial training and produce a professional teaching knowledge deserving of equal appreciation. We observed that the concept underlying the projects establishing these positions is based on an epistemology (by itself democratic) respecting and articulating practitioners, academics, and communities to improve society and impact students’ initial training.

Giving a first sample of the profession to teachers in initial training relates to developing “personal disposition.” We highlight an excerpt from a proposal which referred us to this category: “For this, we use a methodology that involves inserting other subjects in the daily life of the classroom with the perspective that they work with teachers” (PROJ A). We understand that inserting pedagogy students in initial training in an experienced teacher’s classroom can give them a first glimpse of the profession and, therefore, favor the development of “personal disposition.”

The following excerpt also relates to this position:

In this process, licentiate undergraduates will integrate dimensions of research and teaching in their extension activities as they mobilize and produce knowledge in the field of science education that will be shared and taught to students in the basic education network.

(PROJ E – PROPOSAL FORM-SYNTHESIS – SIGProj).

Another category referring to developing this position regards the opportunity to promote self-knowledge and self-construction spaces and times to turn predisposition into personal disposition. Thus, “The second one takes place in fortnightly meetings of the entire involved team to discuss daily school life and experienced (and future) pedagogical practices” (PROJ A), showing the project position that, due to collective self-knowledge and self-construction spaces, enables teachers in initial training to develop a “personal disposition” by moments and places of exchange that project colleagues and school teachers narrate in a network articulating initial and continuing education at the confluence of professional teacher training. These meetings show subjects’ profiles, motivations, conditions, and predispositions to becoming teachers.

Only PROJ A and E showed potentialities to favor the development of “personal disposition.” Their proposals describe plans to give pedagogy students a first sample of the profession by student teaching and co-teaching. They also have “spaces and times that enable self-knowledge, self-construction” (^{NÓVOA, 2017, p. 1121}), such as collective planning and evaluations, dialogue circles, among others. This movement favors turning an inclination toward teaching into a disposition, establishing the path so students can learn how to teach.

Subjects’ perspective of the potentialities to develop teacher training (pre)(dis)positions

Our analysis of participants’ interviews enabled us to infer aspects that emerged from three analytical axes: reasons to work with/participate in university extension; openness for students’ effective participation; and how extension benefits pedagogy students.

How extension benefits pedagogy students

This axis guided us in understanding how participating in university extension actions benefits initial training of teachers, especially those in the pedagogy course at the chosen university.

Subjects’ testimonies raise aspects that lead us to grasp how extension benefits teacher training within the investigated pedagogy course based on two elements: the construction of knowledge in the relation between practice and theory; and the experience outside the university, as in the following statement:

As for the benefits of university extension, I could see that, in the university, we build a lot of theoretical knowledge, right? And, sometimes, we can’t see this in practice. We make a contrary movement in extension; we identify practice in the theory. So, I could see this is a huge benefit, right? […] So, at first, I was on the fence whether that really was what I wanted. And since I had this really early contact with extension (and right in this area), when I set foot in the classroom for the first time — right in Maré, in Nova Holanda, right? […]. In youth and adult education […], with which I had never thought of working […]. I found myself. Now I know I really want to take this course. So, it was precisely in this program that I found myself.

(PROG III Student 2).

University extension aids students to develop knowledge for their professional training based on practice developed in young people and adults’ education, teachers’ continuing education, and education in hospital. All participants found a place for theory, study, and research in these spaces. However, practice in action constitutes its integrating core. Thus, we find the potentialities these spaces represent for teachers’ initial training based on concrete cases from school realities and spaces of contradiction and conflict between academic and practical knowledge (^{ZEICHNER; SAUL; DINIZ-PEREIRA, 2014}), which can promote an exchange of this knowledge in the relation between theory, practice, teaching, and scientific research (^{SANTOS, 2014}).

Chart3 synthesizes the relations among participants’ answers and (dis)positions:

Conclusion

Our documentary analysis shows that the teacher training positions (^{NÓVOA, 2017}) the analyzed programs and extension projects most developed refer to “investigative recomposition and public exposition.” The former stems from articulating extension programs and projects with research groups and the latter, with the very dynamics of extension in its relationship with society. We found “professional interposition” and “pedagogical composition” marks in programs and projects conceiving their proposals to train teachers as closely articulated with schools and their professionals by dialogicity and collaborative work. Overall, two analyzed projects favored the development of “personal disposition” since their proposals enable knowledge of the profession and self-knowledge and self-construction spaces and times.

We articulated subjects’ statements based on three axes. The first axis showed a relation to extension programs that begins by definitions based on the teaching career and student curricula that turn into interest and satisfaction over time. The second axis showed that openness to students’ participation in these actions depends more on the dialogical and collaborative concepts serving as bases for proposals than on general university extension guidelines. The third axis showed that participation in extension teacher training offers a unique set of experiences, readings, and practices due to this experience, which is based on teachers’ daily practice to provide reflections and intertwines the university-basic school-teachers-society relation, favored by the continuity of their activities.

Thus, having the contribution of university extension to teacher training as a horizon and focusing on a set of 11 actions developed in a public university, we position ourselves in three stances. Our first position directs us to a reaffirmation. We reaffirm university extension as a powerful training experience in the initial trajectory of higher education professional teacher training, corroborating Bonifácio and Santos (²⁰²⁰), Kochhann (²⁰¹⁷), Coelho (²⁰¹⁷), and Abreu (²⁰¹⁵). We argue that this formation must be driven by the inseparability among teaching, research, and extension and the primary importance of all these dimensions. We also reaffirm that teacher education must include the university-basic school-teacher-society relation based on horizontal dialogue and valuing the articulation of knowledge, actions, collaboration, autonomy/self-knowledge/self-construction, and participation in society.

Our second position directs us to a realization. Teacher training in the pedagogy course at the studied institution, finds, in its extension program, a fruitful path to favor the development of teacher training (dis)positions (^{NÓVOA, 2017}) based on a potentially contributive training experience that can also constitute a valuable component of the university in training “third spaces” (^{ZEICHNER, 2010}).

Our third and final position directs us to propositions. Based on what we reaffirmed and realized, we suggest that more studies be carried out to further assess the training potential of extension actions. We also suggest that the proponents of education extension programs, projects, courses, and events toward training teachers consider the essential aspects to develop the (dis)positions in Nóvoa (²⁰¹⁷) as an effective way to more clearly demarcate thinking against the premise of the existence of characteristics defining the teaching profession since “by this path, one moves away from a deterministic vision to place oneself in a field of forces and powers in which each one builds their position in relation to themselves and others” (^{NÓVOA, 2017, p. 1119}).