Sofrimento docente na perspectiva histórico-cultural: vivências no ensino superior

Abstract

This thesis investigated how teaching work impacts the psychic constitution of higher education professors, focusing on the psychic suffering that emerges from the teaching experience in a private institution located in the metropolitan region of Curitiba. Based on Historical-Cultural Psychology, which understands the subject in their social, historical, and symbolic totality, the research articulated the thoughts of Lev Vygotsky (1991.a, 1991b, 2003, 2004.a, 2004b, 2013) and Yves Clot (2006, 2007, 2010.a, 2010b, 2013.a, 2013b, 2019). It started from the hypothesis that the limitation of the power to act and transform teaching practice, intensified by current working conditions, could generate suffering. The methodological approach adopted was qualitative, supported by González Rey’s Qualitative Epistemology (2003, 2005.a, 2005b, 2012, 2017) and the Clinic of Activity. The constructive-interpretive methodology was used, with two clinical-political devices: a discussion group and simple self-confrontation. The discussion group functioned as a collective space for listening and producing shared meanings; the self-confrontation interview allowed access to the teaching gesture in its symbolic dimension, favoring the subjective reorganization of the experience. The findings revealed that teacher suffering is configured as a persistent and silent experience, marked by chronic frustration due to the impossibility of carrying out the work according to the values that sustain teaching practice. When this suffering does not find a space for symbolic elaboration, it manifests as chronic frustration, permeated by the feeling of impotence in the face of the distance between what one wishes to achieve and what is possible to implement in practice. The tension between the ethical commitment to human development and institutional demands for performance and retention constitutes a field of conflict that directly affects the psychic health of the professors. The research proposed collective strategies for the promotion of teacher mental health, reaffirming that caring for those who educate is an ethical and political gesture. It was concluded that listening to the activity constituted a powerful way to elaborate suffering, sustain the teaching presence, and affirm teaching as a living and transformative practice.