The practicum as a relational space: relationships, agency and shared critique in teacher education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48035/Keywords:
practicum, teacher identity, relational culture, initial teacher training, case studyAbstract
This work analyses the prácticum as a key formative space in the construction of teacher identity and in the development of a horizontal relational culture among the actors involved. To this end, a case study is presented aimed at understanding how relationships between university and school are configured, the roles played by the different agents (students of the Bachelor’s degree in Primary Education, schoolteachers, and university faculty), and the explicit and implicit learning that emerges during this period. The study focuses on a project in the fourth-year practicum of the Bachelor’s degree in Primary Education at the University of Alcalá, in collaboration with two public schools. The participants were 10 students of the Bachelor’s degree in Teaching, 8 school mentors and 3 university tutors. The results show how horizontality, mutual support, and constructive criticism enrich the formative experience and foster the creation of collaborative learning communities, as well as the development of a critical and committed profesional identity. These findings provide transferable knowledge for other groups and universities seeking to strengthen university-school collaboration and to build horizontal relational cultures in the practicum. It is concluded that the prácticum constitutes a territory of pedagogical, emotional, and political negotiation that challenges both training institutions and collaborating schools.
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