Poverty in teacher training: the situation of poverty in the professional training of future teachers

Abstract

This article discusses the treatment given to the situation of poverty in the professional training of future teachers. The authors intended to understand, through a case study, the elements of reflection and practice that the future teachers of the public elementary education network receive during their undergraduate university education, so that they can face this remarkable feature of Brazil’s social reality that is present also in the educational system. The hypothesis was that poverty is approached only superficially and that the future teachers require the inclusion of this topic in their training in order to deal with the reality of this part of society that does not have its basic needs met. The following research techniques were used: documental analysis of the current curricular guidelines and course descriptions for the training of teachers of the early years of elementary school, application of closed questionnaires to 26 students of the last year of the School of Education and to 25 teacher training students, as well as semi-structured interviews with seven teachers who are working in elementary schools. It was found that: 1. the situation of poverty is not directly addressed in the School of Education, 2. the Education students think that this subject should be added to teacher training.

Key words: elementary education, teacher training, poverty.