The II International Conference of Comparative Education (II CIEC - Conferência Internacional de Educação Comparada) of the Sector of Comparative Education, of the Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences has as its main goal to question and reflect upon teachers’ as prime professionals, in the XXI century, within a compared and diverse scope of environments under the light of many variables, no matter what role the teacher plays in the classroom or in whatever other pedagogical context education may be taking place. Cosmopolitan Citizenship, the new social roleplayers and the reconstruction of teaching practice and teaching professionals; the diferent life stories and the act of being a teacher in the colonial and post colonial regime, and also the global educational policies and curricular studies, are debatable issues.
It is understandable that the importance attributed to the teacher and the teaching profession is a social attitude and inevitable politics. International organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have stated as their priority and strategy towards a sustainable development, the empowerment of teachers and their skills, through quality training. The year 2018 is noted for the third OECD survey on teaching and learning processes (TALIS, Teaching and Learning International Survey), which “
reflects mainly on learning environments in schools and the teachers’ working conditions.”“Being a teacher” in the 21st century, is a crucial challenge of the growing sustainable society, in a world where there are few borders, where the processes of learning and teaching are no longer based on a fixed syllabus or a magna didactic. Another aspect of this “new” teacher in a liquid modernity (Zygmunt Bauman) is the teacher’s social, professional and personal representation which is articulated with the construction of a good teaching practice. It is from this mosaic that we must understand, in a comparative logic, the state of art of the life of a teacher, their stories and the scenery that urge in the midst of the teaching profession which are necessary for education and schools of the 21st century.
