"No light at the end of my tunnel". A narrative approach to long-term interim Physical Education teachers

Abstract

This article explores the experiences and particularities faced by long-term temporary teachers (more than fifteen years in the profession) who opted, without apparent success, for a permanent job in public education. These teachers face a precarious situation characterized by a neoliberal climate, full of uncertainties and with obvious repercussions on their personal and professional lives. Following a narrative methodology, we look at the way these teachers construct and legitimize certain conceptions around the system of access to teaching. Results, organized around a narrative fiction that takes as a reference the day-to-day life of a long-term candidate, suggest the need to (re)think about a change in the paradigm of access to the teaching profession in order to minimize the personal and professional erosion to which these professionals are subjected.