Teachers´ Identities and Pedagogic Practices in Barcelona and Buenos Aires. Global Pressures, Local Responses and Common Challenges

In Western developed and non-developed contemporary societies, comprehensive secondary schooling faces numerous and complex challenges triggered by the emergence and consolidation of the globalised knowledge society, the expansion of social inequalities, and the proliferation of youth cultures. In this scenario, this paper maps out some of these challenges in secondary schools in Barcelona (Spain) and in the City of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Based on different qualitative research projects carried out in each city, the paper focuses on teachers´ identities and pedagogic practices in secondary schools for pupils from socially and economically disadvantaged families, and located in deprived urban areas. The following questions organise our analysis: How do teachers define their work in these schools? How do they address the distance between the school cultural capital and working class cultural capital? How do teachers see their own responsibility with regard to pupils´ school “success” or “failure”? What are the tensions between teachers´ identities, policy pressures and young people's experiences, knowledge and identities? In order to address these questions, this paper is organised into three sections. The first examines our theoretical tools -pedagogical devices, identities and the social construction of educational trajectories- drawing from English and French literature. The second describes the educational policy scenario in Barcelona and Buenos Aires, and, in turn, examines how different groups of teachers deal with everyday challenges and how they delineate diverse teachers´ identities. Finally, we compare and contrast the cases under examination and we identify common and specific challenges for comprehensive education, as well as lessons to be learned beyond the researched scenarios. In sum, the paper allows mapping some of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ challenges facing secondary education in order to achieve educational success for all students and contextualise them in light of the contemporary social, economical and cultural transformations.