Autoetnografando vivências agentivas como professora de língua inglesa em uma escola pública estadual à luz da Teoria Sócio-Histórico-Cultural

Abstract

Situated within the field of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and socially engaged Applied Linguistics, which operates as a space of resistance and transgression (Moita Lopes, 2006; Tanzi Neto, 2021), this research problematizes the persistent traces of the banking model of education (Freire, 2021) that permeate school practices and shape the constitution of teaching, especially when I seek to create more democratic and participatory learning spaces. In this context, the investigation – conducted in high school English classes at a public school in Espírito Santo – aims to understand my teacher agency in the construction of a didactic unit on mental health, from its planning to its implementation, in light of contributions from blended learning (Bacich; Tanzi Neto; Trevisani, 2015) and the Socio-Cultural-Historical Theory (SCHT) (Vygotsky, 2007, 2009), particularly regarding conceptions of agency (Carmona; Liberali, 2023; Edwards, 2005, 2009, 2011; Engeström; Sannino, 2020; Liberali, 2020; Sannino, 2015; Stetsenko, 2017, 2020, 2023). The specific objectives seek to answer the following questions: 1) How do I perceive my agency during the planning and implementation of the didactic unit on mental health based on the contributions of blended learning studies? 2) In what ways did interactions with colleagues, students, and the institutional context contribute to my agency throughout the investigative process? and 3) How did students demonstrate engagement and active participation during the implementation of the didactic unit, and how did this influence my agency? The study adopts an autoethnographic methodology (Bandeira; Costa, 2022; Basoni; Merlo, 2022; Fadini; 2020; Nicola; Vosgerau, 2020; Rocha; Araújo; Bossle, 2018) and was conducted with two first-year high school classes in 2023. The findings indicate that my agency manifested in multiple and complementary ways – including transformative and de- encapsulated agency (Carmona; Liberali, 2023; Liberali, 2020), radical-transformative agency and hegemonically aligned agency (Stetsenko, 2017, 2020, 2023), transformative agency (Engeström; Sannino, 2020; Sannino, 2015), relational agency (Edwards, 2005, 2009, 2011), and ecological agency (Biesta; Priestley; Robinson, 2015). These forms emerged within a situated process mediated by cultural artifacts (Cole, 1998) – such as the State School Safety Plan (Espírito Santo, 2023), my previous experiences with blended learning (Bacich; Tanzi Neto; Trevisani, 2015), and the resources available at the school – and were shaped by structural tensions present in the everyday school context. These intersections revealed movements of agency that became particularly visible in the narratives about the creation and implementation of the three stations – Yellow Protest Station, Warming Messages Station, and Fire Research Station – and in the facilitation of the fishbowl discussion activity, moments in which my decisions, stances, and relationships with students, colleagues, and the institutional context proved decisive in driving, limiting, or redirecting the course of the didactic unit.