Ways of participation during the practicum in the classroom community as opportunities to learn the teaching profession

Abstract

This article presents some of the results of an investigation focused on knowing the forms of joint participation of a student teacher and a tutor in a classroom community during the practicum. The research is part of a sociocultural perspective of learning understood as participation. The methodology corresponds to a singular case study consisting of a teacher of Early Childhood Education, eighteen students and a student teacher. Fifteen classroom sessions distributed throughout a semester are analysed. The results allows the identification of nine different forms of joint participation, pre-sent during the practicum, which for the student teacher represent varying degrees of involvement and co-responsibility in said classroom community. The distribution of the different forms of participation throughout the practicum does not follow, as would be expected, a growing trend, from less to more participation of the student teacher, but it shows important oscillations that involve advances and setbacks in the degree of in - volvement in the tasks of the classroom, even in those in which she had already achie-ved high levels of involvement. These oscillations are explained according to specific aspects of the sociocultural practice of the classroom in which they occur.