Setor público e identidades profissionais em educa o de infancia: transforma es e permanências na última década

In order to explore the effects of work experiences in the public sector on the identities of pre-school teachers, this article presents and compares the results of two studies - one conducted in 2002 and another in 2009. The first studied pre-school teachers with experience in public sector only or in the private sector only, and the second studied also those with mixed career paths. In both cases, the data were collected through the Inventory of Psychosocial Identity of Marisa Zavalloni. The results indicated the existence of similarities between the typical identities of each sector, which can be attributed to the mixed nature of most career paths, but also, amongst others, to changes in the public sector based on the creation of grouped schools. They also indicate that work experience in the public sector is reflected in the emergence of an identity typical of this sector, which is guided by principles that usually define public education.