Beyond the ring road. Teaching philosophy in the outskirts of Cordoba

Abstract

The following article summarizes exploratory research on the way in which philosophy is taught in the outskirts of the city of Córdoba, Argentina. The investigation focuses on the teaching experience in relation to its structural and subjective dimensions. It understands that the act of teaching occurs within a social context where individuals, depending on their background, engage in either a dominant or subordinate position. Both in the act of teaching and in the act of learning they operate according to dispositions or practical incorporated senses (habitus), which shape their preferences, expressions, and actions. From this frame the teaching of philosophy is approached considering it is produced and reproduced in an academic environment.
This “microcosm” – from where many working teachers receive disciplinary formation- it is relatively autonomous and free of “economic coercions” (Bourdieu, 1999). Which are the teaching actions that teachers with university formation perform at schools with socially dominated population? How do they redirect their professional trajectory? What purpose do they give to their practice? How do they justify their teaching? The research methodology includes interviews with graduates from the National University of Córdoba, now teachers at public schools in the outskirts of Córdoba, in neighborhoods that have been described.