When digital society is only an echo: the case of the initial professional development of primary school teachers

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show the lack of consideration of the changes brought about by the digital society in the initial professional development of primary school teachers and its implications for education. First we argue the opportunity and the need to carry out the coordinated RTD project "Identidoc -The construction of the professional identity of infant and primary school teachers during initial training and the first years at work” (MIMECO-EDU2010-20852-C02-01/2), and how it has allowed us to focus on the issue addressed in this text. Second and third we explain how implementing nine biographical narratives, supplemented by ethnographic observations, conducting nine focus groups with a total of 49 teachers, and analyzing the curriculum of the fifteen universities in which participants in this research have studied have allowed us to show the distance between the digital society and schooling. We conclude highlighting the need to deeply revise and rethink initial and in-service teachers’ professional development, if we are to encourage teachers to stop performing as conveyor belts to become engines of change and innovation.