The role of the teacher's reading identity in literary mediation

Abstract

Studying the role of the teacher in literary education has become relevant in recent years in the field of Didactics of language and literature, however, in Chile the subject has not been explored in depth.

The objective of the research was to characterize the reading profiles and didactic practices of a group of Language and Literature teachers who participate in reading promotion programs, based on their beliefs about literary education. To this end, a mixed design was used, integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches at different times of the investigation in order to achieve a more complete view of the research phenomenon. The sample included 14 teachers, some participants in the “Dialogues in Motion” program, teachers who work in rural establishments, and others in schools and high schools in the Maule region (Chile). All of them answered a questionnaire, while 3 teachers were also given an interview.

The profiles obtained show them as infrequent readers of literature, whose reading identity is built mainly from their projection as mediators in the classroom who seek the construction of reading habits in their students rather than interpretative processes with progressive complexity. The foregoing allows us to conclude that, although it is not possible to ensure a direct causal relationship between the profile of a teacher and his professional practice, his own behavior as a reader is related to the objectives that are privileged in the literary education offered.