The social representation of technology for the teaching work in Amazon

Abstract

The article is the result of a research that aimed to analyze the social representation of technology, between trainers and course participants, at the Educational Technology Center in Manaus / State of Amazonas, its implications for teacher training and in the implementation processes of policies for the insertion of technology in teaching work in the Amazon. Some reflections on the relationship between education, technology, training, and teaching work are highlighted, considering its importance in the educational praxis of educators in the region. Nevertheless, it discusses the role of policies for incorporating technology into teaching and its implications for teacher training. In this sense, an empirical study based on the Theory of Social Representation was carried out as a theoretical-methodological axis, its mechanisms of formation and structuring to apprehend the materiality and the meaning of the term technology. For this purpose, in the data collection, 70 teachers participating in the process of implanting the Municipal Technology Centers (MTC’s) in the State of Amazonas were interviewed and the following instruments and techniques were used: systematic observation, registration and semistructured interview, free association techniques, content analysis, in addition to the epistemological assumptions of Bourdieu’s habitus theory. The results obtained with the development of the research indicate the coexistence of two meanings of the term: technology as a product (material medium) and as a process (management strategies, interactions, and didactic mediations). Among the implications of these representations in teacher training, it stands out: the modification and apprehension of symbolic productions around the object technology, although its senses are disconnected from the specificities of the Amazonian region.