Academic policies and university teaching

Professional reconfiguration, training and new challenges

Abstract

The present number of University Trajectories, it is proposed to cover some of the current dimensions that cross university teaching, reconfiguring it, in relation to processes that are articulated both with the scenario of current cultural transformations and with academic public policies for the higher level that they rethink Some of its traditional features. 

One of these policies, central in the sense we propose, of implementing the so-called teaching career or academic career in the national universities of Argentina, is addressed by Daniela Atairo and Laura Rovelli. The authors' work presents results of an ongoing investigation, in which this policy is analyzed, recovering the complexity of the process and the senses that are articulated to it. One of the conclusions that emerges refers to the fact that it exists in the configuration of teaching, caused by the profiles of these careers, is a tendency towards the differentiation of functions and trajectories, attending to the difficulties that these university functions pose in the same subject (teacher). This trend, without a doubt, takes up a long-standing discussion about the configuration of teaching work in the university and specifically about the quality of the development of its task in institutional scenarios of intensification of academic work and unequal recognition of the functions it develops. 

On the other hand, public policies aimed at educational inclusion and the democratization of higher education, also form a powerful plot that challenges university teaching, along the entire training course, although drawing more strongly on income and the first year of university studies. Around this process, the work of Eva Mariani, Glenda Morandi and Mónica Ros analyzes, from an exploratory investigation, the perspectives and pedagogical proposals of chairs of the first year of the UNLP, about the challenges of educational inclusion, and the answers in terms of strategies and practices from which they try to promote it. It is possible to observe how the processes articulated to the policies of inclusion, deeply discuss with some traditional senses about university teaching, the senses of the training, the knowledge that is cut as legitimate and the micro scenarios in which the training processes have place. In this framework of reconfiguration of academic practices at the University, Marcela Sosa's article analyzes the trajectory of young researchers in their incorporation into the academic experience once they have graduated, in a context of complexing the possibilities of exercising their role in the College. According to the author, the transience of the current employment relationship, in the passage from intern to temporary plant, refers to uncertainties in science policies in our country, in a scenario of budgetary restriction, different from the previous one, as well as the maintenance of the projects initiated in your institution. It is also crucial in this regard, the conclusion about the relevance they have for the academic insertion of these professionals, the previous school biographies in their possible dialogue or framework with the hegemonic academic and disciplinary models. 

The reconfigurations that occurred in teaching, are also recovered in the work of Lucarelli, who focuses the analysis on the ways in which the meaning of teacher training and the role of Pedagogical Advisors in the spaces they coordinate is reconsidered. As the author points out, the actions begin to be characterized by creating situations in which the “trainer explicitly incorporates the knowledge of himself, of the affective, of the relational, as strategy and content of those programs”. The active and participatory role of both subjects of the process is deepened, in a context in which the problematization of practices and subjectivities, becomes fundamental to go through the changes and variations that arise in teaching and teaching.This number also substantially recovers the innovative experiences that university professors from different disciplines and areas have built, reflected and implemented based on the debates and commitments that go through this institution. The works of the Experiences and Proposals section configure creative and critical contributions that express the concrete possibility of articulating theories and practices, realities and challenges, desires and achievements. 

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