The relationship between narratives and the development of resilience in teachers.

Project funded by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain, the State Research Agency, and the ERDF fund
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In this project:

  • We study the structure of the teachers’ narratives.
  • We look for relationships between certain aspects of the narratives and teacher resilience.
  • We study the transformation processes of teachers’ narratives.
  • We compare the narratives of teachers in different socio-cultural communities.
  • Project information:

    Duration: 1/01/2018 – 30/09/2022

    Funding: 57838 €

    Reference: EDU2017-87406-P

    PI: Marc Clarà


    Abstract:

    The NARRES project has studied the emotional experience of teachers in the kindergarten, primary and secondary education levels. The project has focused on the way in which teachers makes sense of the situations in their practice, based on the hypothesis that the way in which these situations are narrated is related to the way in which these situations “feel.” It is assumed, therefore, that the same events can generate different emotional experiences in the teacher depending on how the teacher narrates them. Understanding this narrativization process and its implications for teachers’ emotions is important for the development of teacher resilience, understood as the functional adaptation to adverse situations of teaching practice, and that allows teachers to maintain their emotional well-being and their teaching commitment despite the adversities, intrinsic, in part, in the current educational systems.

    The NARRES project has shown that the narrativization of events in terms of students, colleagues or families “know how to do” and “can do”, and in terms of “I (the teacher) do it”, is related to a better emotional experience of the teacher. On the other hand, the narrativization in terms of “they don’t want to do it”, “they can’t do it”, and “they don’t do it” is related to a worse emotional experience – it is better to use structures of the type “they don’t know how to do it”. Also related to a negative emotional experience is the narrativization of events in terms of “I don’t do it.” The results also indicate that teachers whose narratives imply a more student-centered conception of learning and a psychosocial educational purpose have a worse emotional experience than those who assume a more teacher-centered conception of learning and a more purely academic purpose. This suggests that the incorporation into educational systems of student-centered and more global conceptions of learning requires support for teachers to develop teacher resilience. A central path for the development of teacher resilience is to change the way of narrating events to narrativize them through more functional structures. The NARRES project has identified different semiotic mechanisms that allow this re-narration: mechanisms such as “hybridization”, the “change of perspective”, or “the elaboration of antecedents”, among others, allow re-narrating events avoiding, for example, structures of the type “they don’t want to” or generating structures of the type “I do it.”

    The results of the NARRES project makes it possible to advance in the understanding of teacher resilience and offers tools to develop it, both with in-service and pre-service teachers.


    Members of the team:

    • Aina Franch (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Alba Vallés Sisamón (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Bárbara Cotta Padula (Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Minas Gerais)
    • Bernardita Justiniano (Universidad Casa Grande)
    • Blanca Patrícia Silva (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Claudia Patricia Uribe (Universidad Casa Grande)
    • Deborah Mulligan (University of Southern Queensland)
    • Diana Danoso Figuereido (Universidad Casa Grande)
    • Fabiano Ramos (Universidade Federal de Jataí)
    • Jordi Coiduras (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Jorge Chávez Rojas (Universidad Andrés Bello)
    • Juan Pablo Barril Madrid (Universidad Autónoma de Chile)
    • Karen Peel (University of Southern Queensland)
    • Marc Clarà (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Nicholas Patrick Kelly (Queensland University of Technology)
    • Patrick Alan Danaher (University of Southern Queensland)
    • Priscila Marchán (Universidad Casa Grande)
    • Roberta Harreveld (CQUniversity)
    • Sílvia do Patrocínio Cavalcante (Universitat de Lleida)
    • Sonia Salvo Garrido (Universidad de la Frontera)
    • Tatiana López (Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso)

    Undergraduate students in colaboration

    • Ilona Muntada (2018/2019)
    • Claustre (Tate) Moreno (2018/2019)
    • Aina Franch (2019/2020)
    • Marina Rovira (2019/2020)
    • Sandra Gros (2020/2021)
    • Ricardo Castillo (2020/2021)