Navigating Uncertainty: Fear As a Barrier to Teaching and Learning in the Socialization of Sociology Master’s Students in Brazil

The aim of this communication is to analyze the different configurations of fear in the teaching and learning socialization processes among Sociology teachers who are also master's students. For this purpose, qualitative data were produced through an online focus group. The group was composed of twenty-six public basic education teachers who were also students in the National Network Professional Master's Degree in Sociology (ProfSocio) at the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation (Fundaj) in Recife, Pernambuco. The activity took place during the virtual delivery of the research methodology course in 2021, a period when social distancing measures were adopted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In investigating which emotions present themselves as barriers in the teaching and learning processes, fear stood out among the responses. This fear refers mainly to the fear of making mistakes, which is associated with failure, academic failure, perfectionism, and the inability to meet the demands of professors in the school and university context. Because the focus group participants were simultaneously basic education teachers and master's students, reflection on fear allowed for correlating the experiences and sensations lived in the past with those of the present. In this sense, fear connects different types of socialization that the teacher-master's students have undergone, revealing past traumas associated with their school experiences in elementary, middle, and higher education, and also expressing anxieties regarding the completion of the professional master's degree in Sociology. The results of this investigation point to the affective dimensions in teaching and learning processes, which are neglected throughout school and academic life. This fact constitutes a rich field for the anthropology and sociology of emotions in their task of investigating social relations in contemporary times.