Literatura na formação docente? Nem sempre: Memórias e experiências de leitura de professoras

Abstract

This study discusses experiences and memories related to literary reading and teacher education. The research was developed within the Graduate Program in Education (PPGE) at the State University of Montes Claros (Unimontes), situated in the field of teacher education and public educational policies. Referencing different times and spaces of formation, the study was guided by the following question: How do the experiences with reading and literature lived by teachers relate to their teacher education, their conceptions, and the practices they mediate in the classroom? The general objective of this study is to analyze the presence of reading and literature throughout the life paths, education, and teaching practices of teachers, discussing the experiences that shaped them in their professional knowledge and actions. A qualitative approach was adopted, aimed at understanding the experiences with literature and the meanings attributed to reading by teachers throughout their trajectories during childhood, adolescence, education, and professional life. Using oral life history as a research method, the study sought to reconstruct individual and collective memories from the participants’ narratives. For data collection, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 participants: six graduates from Normal Schools, seven teachers with mid-level teaching certification, four pedagogues, two undergraduate students in Pedagogy. The research was organized around two analytical categories—space and time—which guided the selection of teachers trained in different contexts: Normal Schools, regular schools offering mid-level technical teaching certification, and universities providing licensure in Pedagogy for teacher education. The formative processes occurred across distinct historical periods—before the Military Dictatorship, during the regime of oppression, and after it, during the country’s re-democratization—having as reference the city of Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, the locus of the study. The theoretical framework was based on the works of Kramer (1997, 1999, 2001), Marinho (1998), Britto (1998), Batista (1998), Cosson (2022), Cândido (1995), Failla (2007, 2016), authors. Based on the oral life histories, it was observed that despite the diversity of times and spaces, the teachers shared similar experiences marked by the limitations of reading, commonly experienced as strictly school practices. It is concluded that, even when analyzing the temporal range from 1930 to 2025 and the various contexts of teacher education, most participants did not experience authentic literary reading practices capable of shaping them as readers or inspiring pedagogical actions. Therefore, teachers do not tend to use literature as an integral part of their everyday personal and professional practices, revealing a fragility in recognizing literature as a cultural object and formative resource that redefines experiences, strengthens critical education, and contributes to the construction of teacher identity