Teaching degree graduates: What motivates the choice to the degree and working as a teacher

ABSTRACT Responsibilities that go beyond teaching are required of and attributed to teachers in the classroom. It is up to them to solve family and social problems that the students bring to the school context, and they do not receive the social and economic appreciation that they deserve. Faced with these assumptions, this article presents a study with graduates; with or without ProUni grants from the teaching degree programs of a nonprofit Education Institution from Rio Grande do Sul and aims to answer the following questions: what leads people to choose teaching degree programs upon entering university? How satisfied or dissatisfied are they with the education they obtained? How satisfied or dissatisfied are they with the teaching practice? The methodological framework used was quantitative and of the 60 graduates invited to answer a questionnaire, 52 responded. The analyses indicate that aspects related to the prior characteristics of the teaching candidates, such as compatibilities, skills, social perspectives, among others, were associated to the choice of the program and to satisfaction with the undergraduate degree. The data also indicate that the ProUni grant holders as well as those who did not have grants had similar characteristics and perceptions regarding the program chosen.