Exploring in the Identity: How do university professors face the critical incidents that occur in the classrooms during the education of future teachers?

Abstract

This study intends to respond mainly to three questions relying on the interviews held with five Chilean university professors that train future teachers. These questions are: ‘How do university professors who train future teachers define their identity?’, ‘What are the common critical incidents in their classes?’, and, ‘How do they deal with these critical incidents?’ An analysis based on these questions is made that identifies relevant elements in their identity, as well as some variables associated to critical incidents they described. The results allow a set of categories from which identity differences of the professors of this faculty group can be drawn. In the same way, they show evidence of the ways professors perform facing critical incidents, and visualize an important potential use of these events as an instrument for the continuous education. Finally, some scopes and limits of this research are outlined which need further investigation.