The university professor's authority: a study focused on language arts student's accounts

PIERELLA, MARÍA PAULA

EDUCAçãO E PESQUISA

Facultad de Educación de la Universidad de San Pablo

Lugar: Sao Paulo; Año: 2015 vol. 41 p. 427 - 441

1517-9702

This article presents some conclusions of an investigation focused on exploring the professor?s authority from the perspective of students about to complete their studies at an Argentinean public university. This work is written in the lines of investigation about the university experience directed by Dr. Sandra Carli in the Education and Society Area of Gino Germani Institute. (Faculty of Social Sciences, National University of Buenos Aires). Specifically, the text focuses on language arts students, belonging to the Faculty of Humanities and Arts of the National University of Rosario. The prioritized data collection technique was the semi-structured interview with contributions of life stories. As a general conclusion, student accounts show a delegitimization of traditional student-teacher relationships based on hierarchical authority. Besides, many different aspects of authority are described, including knowledge of this discipline, the academic recognition within the field and the charisma. Additionally, the authority of the past, the authority of the author and the book as an object are emphasized. Finally, the legitimacy granted to the Bachelor of Arts figure is revealed with the consequent discredit that falls upon the high school teacher figure, being this one the most frequent job prospect among the career graduates.