Identity and meaning of work for Portuguese teachers

The processes of transformation that contemporary societies are now going through have contributed to the reconfiguration of and stress in the different realities of work and of the professions. In Portugal, during the last few decades it has been proved to be true that the different constitutional governments tended to legislate for reforms concerning the structure of the central administration. In the educational field, these political measures were expressed in countless decrees and standards, which have had repercussions on the lives of schools and teachers. New regimes were proposed like professional reclassification and reconversion (2008) and, more recently, the loss of teaching posts by mutual consent and the requalification of the workers, who were surplus in public services and bodies (2013). An investigation will be carried out in which the principal objective is the understanding of what teachers think about the impact of these policies on their work and on the (re)construction of their professional identity, thus permitting a wider understanding of what it is to be a teacher today. The investigation is of a qualitative nature with recourse to biographical narratives and documental research. This article will focus on a revision of the literature concerning the theme, while emphasizing that the quality of work undertaken by these professionals has a strong relationship with the significance that they attribute to themselves. Thus, in the case of the teachers, the meaning assigned to their work has an impact on their own teaching work and their professional identity