Teacher socialization and its implications for assessment practices in Science and Biology

Resumo

This study analyzes, from a sociological perspective, how professional habitus and dispositions—constituted through processes of school, academic, and professional socialization—shape teachers’ assessment practices and produce participation or exclusion. Grounded in Bourdieu’s theory of action (2007; 2011) and Lahire’s dispositionalist sociology (2004), the study examines narratives from seven Science and Biology teachers who graduated from a Biological Sciences teacher education program at a public university in southern Brazil. The research adopts a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews (Bourdieu, 2008). The findings indicate the predominance, within the professional habitus, of an ascetic disposition articulated with a meritocratic logic, materialized in assessment practices centered on tests and grades, often mobilized as mechanisms of control and discipline, thus constituting forms of symbolic violence. At the same time, critical dispositions and competencies associated with scientific practices emerge, enabling the tensioning of this logic through participatory strategies and formative assessment. These dispositions operate under strong institutional constraints, highlighting that the transformation of assessment practices is directly linked to structural changes in school contexts and in teacher education processes.