Evaluation and power in university teaching: legitimized fields and silenced knowledges

Abstract

University professors, not having in their career the demand for professional training for teaching, incorporate the rites of tradition into the knowledge they develop in order to teach. In this sense they are vulnerable to external influences that define teaching, including the public evaluation policies. With this perspective we developed an inter-institutional research involving three Brazilian universities with the aim of checking the impact of these policies, particularly the National Exam of Courses, on teaching. They contain an idea of the quality of higher education as well as a perception of what it means to be a successful professor. We interviewed students, coordinators and professors of 12 undergraduate courses, including teacher training courses and courses for self-employed professionals. The results of the research detected elements of impact of the evaluative policies on the ways professors act. However, there was a variation of results according to the nature of the courses. In those for self-employed professionals the competitive logic was more present, whereas in the teacher training courses focused on the pedagogical processes. Both, however, are affected in their subjectivities and tend to reorganize their practices according to the parameter of success imposed by the evaluation model, even when it deviates from the quality education they previously advocated.

Key words: Institutional Evaluation, Teaching Knowledges, University Pedagogy.