The “Universitisation” of Geography Teacher Training in Portugal: Reflecting on its Results and Weaknesses

Abstract

In Portugal, geography teacher training followed a process of ‘universitisation’ that enhanced its academic dimension and weakened the importance of professional training. Training became focused on outcomes, more than on processes, and its effects were increasingly disappointing as regards changing teachers’ practices. Although such problems are not confined to geography teacher training, in the case of geography they seem to be particularly pertinent, since they contribute to widen the gap between academic and school geography. The paper intends to address two questions: (1) how did the ‘universitisation’ of teacher training affect teachers’ involvement as regards the overall training process?; (2) how to explain the marginal results obtained by training as regards changing teachers’ practices? From the data collected for this research through the content analysis of primary documents, databases and the results presented by various field researches, it seems possible to identify the main weaknesses that affect geography teacher training: (a) training programmes fail to narrow the gap between theory and practice; and (b) training processes are unable to identify and take into account the experiences and the personal beliefs that shaped student teachers’ knowledge before they enter training. These justify the design of a new reflective methodology.