Falas docentes: a constituição socioemocional em contexto universitário

Abstract

This paper proposes the study of the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, in a university context – especially in the teaching work environment – mediated by language. This research intends to investigate what professors can say about their management (or not) of emotional tension situations in the context of teaching work. The intention is to know the professor's representations about their work and to know whether, even unconsciously, the educators develop some strategy to protect their emotions. The relevance of this study is considered, as it raises issues that have yet to be explored (regarding socioemotional education in a university context). The conceptual basis of this research is the sociological and philosophical theories related to “education”, “work” and “language”. The main theoretical foundations are the legacies of Bakhtin (2016) and Vygotsky (2008), in which we may understand that language is eminently social, dialogic, and closely related to subjectivation and thoughts building. It was driven through a qualitative feature and, by interviewing professors of teacher shaping courses at a public university in the state of Paraná (Brazil), this research reveals the following aspects: cultural issues involving teaching; the professor's relationship with their work; the linguistic materiality of emotions in teaching work; and the management of emotions by professors. In addition, as a finding, this dissertation identified essential supports for the professors to overcome (or even avoid) possible sources of tension related to the work environment. The results of this research show that: the professors have contradictory feelings concerning their work environment; each one of them uses some emotion management strategy – albeit empirically – and some of these strategies coincide, in a sense, with techniques proposed by Cury (2013); and that the professors, in general, try to work on these issues with undergraduate students of teacher-shaping courses, though in a limited way. Finally, we conclude that language plays a fundamental role in issues involving emotions – both in the production of thoughts and emotions, as well as in their expression/materialization, as well as in enabling the management of emotions, which would be impossible without its linguistic materialization.