Learning through practice: the experience of secondary school TVET teachers in Chile

This article summarizes the main results of a research on teachers working in secondary school VET in Chile by reviewing the principal features of teacher professional identity, including their beliefs and perceptions about teaching for job and their experiences in the context of the school settings in which they work. Empirical findings were collected from a survey of 490 teachers and 31 in-depth interviews. Analysis of these findings shows the emergence of a distinctive teacher professional identity. The identity emphasizes a practical teaching model that is associated with the application of a pedagogy of accompaniment, but which also demonstrates tensions and difficulties of interaction regarding the traditional academic school model. Teachers pointed out as common the weakness of institutional support, the weak link with employers and productive agents and the recurrent need to show their own individual initiative in order to face the challenges of training students.