PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND DEONTOLOGY IN PORTUGUESE TEACHER'S THINKING

Abstract

In face of the crisis of values observed in all society, public opinion tends to blame schools and teachers for failing the moral and civic education of pupils. For some authors in the field of the Sciences of Education this is due to a technicist formation of teachers. A review of the empirical studies carried out at the University of Lisbon on the ethical thought of post elementary school teachers shows that teachers conceive their profession as being essentially ethical and tend to overcome the antinomy between practical and technical rationality. However, the experience of the ethical function of teaching necessarily involves contradictions and ambiguities which this article intends to analyze.