The university teaching work as relational practice: subjects, knowledges and institutions

Abstract

This article addresses the relational dimension of university teaching work from the analysis of the literature on the subject and the information gathered through interviews with Argentine and Spanish academics. It argues that the teaching work is a social practice that puts the teachers in a web of multiple relationships with other subjects, specific knowledge, private institutions and society in general. Throughout the writing, we analyze the relations between colleagues and the forms assumed the culture of university teaching work; the characteristics that the link with students; the link teachers with university institution and organization membership, and the relationship with certain knowledge that requires the exercise of university teaching. The recognition network multiple relationships from which the teachers exercise their daily tasks, enables think the teaching work as a heterogeneous practice traversed by multiple tensions.