Abstract

School education requires the guidance, orientation and conduction of a teaching staff that is responsible for their students’ development. This is why educating implies asymmetry and hierarchy, that is, pedagogical authority. However, today’s societies are decreasingly hierarchical, and subjects are more critical of authority. In a sociocultural context in which the classical forms of authority are weakening, young education students have to construct new meanings which they find coherent and effective. With the goal of exploring the new understandings of pedagogical authority, a study was conducted of 913 education students in different Spanish-speaking countries: Chile, Colombia, Venezuela and Spain. The multinational analysis enabled us to identify cross-cutting meanings, as well as local understandings constructed by the education students in today’s society. A questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions was administered. The overall results indicate that viewing authority grounded in reciprocal respect between teachers and students cuts across the participants and is significantly associated with the teaching of academic knowledge.