Considerations about authority in schools. Chapter of a research experience

Abstract

The school has stopped responding to new and diverse demands. Faced with this complexity, new devices have been created from the state sector and have developed regulations and supporting documents in management to favor a paradigm shift in practices. The objective of the research - of which this article constitutes a chapter of it - was to explore the social representations put into play between teachers and members of the school guidance team around two practices: to guide and to intervene institutionally in primary schools of La Matanza. The results obtained show that old representations maintain practices installed in other times reinforced by a logic where binary and true thinking predominates.

The practice of Orientation, although it raises criticism of the interior, organizes and, from there, provides certainty (symbolic efficacy).

The practice of intervening institutionally causes resistance because its novel logic questions the facts, categories such as hierarchy, the social division of labor between those who think and those who execute, and a type of authority. These categories constitute the scaffolding of traditional practices within schools.

Initially, the objectives of the research and methodological aspects are presented to then move on to an aspect of the results indicated, that of the pedagogical authority. Next, the pedagogical authority dimension is articulated with some textual interviews of the actors and finally some reflections are presented as conclusions.