Abstract

FERNANDEZ NISTAL, María Teresa; TUSET BERTRAN, Ana María; PEREZ IBARRA, Ricardo Ernesto  and  GARCIA HERNANDEZ, Claudia. Educational practices and beliefs of secondary education teachers who belong to schools with different socio-economic contexts. Perfiles educativos [online]. 2013, vol.35, n.139, pp.40-59. ISSN 0185-2698.

This article deals with the differences in the educational practices of secondary education teachers who work in schools that are located in different socio-economic contexts and identifies their beliefs about learning and the influence that the lower socio-economic level has on this process. The data gathering was made by means of classrooms observations and an interview to the teachers. The results show that there are differences in some aspects of the educational practice according to the socio-economic contexts in which the schools are inscribed: the teachers who teach to students who belong to lower socio-economic contexts spent less time to knowledge and ability restructuring, expressed less frequently a positive appraisal of their students' academic work and within their classrooms a lower frequency of symmetric communicational structures could be observed. Most of the teachers believe that the conditions created by poverty have an impact on learning problems.

Keywords : Educational practice; Teachers' beliefs; Educational equity; Secondary education; Socio-economic level.