The objective of this paper is to analyse the social representations of the concept "formation". Two sources of information are taken. First, papers dealing with the subject of teacher formation published in the proceedings of an important Congress on Educational Research held in Mexico in 2017, here we analyse the use and treatment given to the concept of "formation" in documents published in a specialized medium. On the other hand, we used the technique of natural semantic networks, applied to 76 teachers from Teacher Training Schools in Mexico and 62 teachers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The semantic network helps capturing the Social Representations of these teachers regarding formation. The results show that in the current use of the concept of formation, its limits are blurred and mixed with other similar, but not the same, concepts: education, training, updating, professionalization, schooling, among others. A naive and without rigor use of this concept dominates. But above all, the idea that formation can be given and that it is limited to what can be certified predominates, leaving aside its reflexive dimension. This could lead to mechanized formation processes that are far from the original meaning of the concept.

Published in: London International Conference on Education (LICE-2020)

• Date of Conference: 23-25 November 2020
• DOI: 10.2053/LICE.2020.0012
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-22-8
• Conference Location: London, UK