Representações Sociais da Diversidade Cultural na Formação ...

ABSTRACT
WILSON, Tania Cristina Pereira. The social representation of cultural diversity in teacher
education. Rio de Janeiro, 2011. Doctoral Thesis (Doctorate in Education). Faculty of
Education, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2011.
This qualitative study was based in the social representations of cultural diversity in teacher
education. We sought to identify the social representations of cultural diversity of students
entering and those graduating from seven degrees and to what extent were no changes in the
central nucleus of the representations. We also sought to further understand how the training
could articulate multiculturalism and social representations in view to raising awareness of
cultural diversity. We refer to studies of Abric, Vergés, Perez-Gomez, Tardif, Canen, Candau,
Maclaren and Sacristán, among others. The research subjects were the course coordinators
and students entering and those graduating from the seven degrees in a state institution of
higher learning dedicated only to the education of teachers. The instruments of data collection
were the association test applied to the students and interview method for the coordinators of
the courses. There was still the analysis of the political-pedagogical projects of degrees, the
discipline and mandatory common programs, as well as activities of university extension. In
the analysis of the representations we used the Vergés quadrant technique and concluded that
there was a change in the core of social representations of those initiating and of the seniors
on cultural diversity. The data collected in the documents, interviews and extension actions
indicate that an environment of openness and acceptance of cultural diversity was possibly
responsible for the change in the central nucleus of the representations. In general this study
aims to make understandable what to be thought, what to be said and to be done concerning
cultural diversity in teacher education at college level.
Keywords: Social representations; Cultural diversity; Initial training of teachers,
Multiculturalism.
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