Fenomén učitelské profese v mateřské škole ve vizuálních reprezentacích (studujících) učitelek

A deeper understanding of the kindergarten teacher’s profession allows for the use of visual methodology and symbol analysis of visual representations in pedagogical research. The study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of verbally difficult to convey meanings through quantification of thematic motifs of drawings by student kindergarten teachers (n = 76) and a detailed qualitative analysis of selected images of 5 of them, based on a team-based free association method and subsequent symbolic interpretation of the images. In the results of the quantitative analysis, the kindergarten teacher’s profession is based on the visualization of the relationships and interaction between adults (usually women) and children, most often in free play or learning, with the support of a set agenda and against the background of a positively attuned situation. However, the interpretation of the expressive symbolism of the 5 drawings also offers previously unnoticed contradictions that disrupt this schema. In them, other aspects of the profession emerge, such as overload, elements of unreasonable attachment, dependence or the sad transience of all their efforts and activities, resonating also the weakening of the profession’s importance at the expense of external pressures.