Examining professional identity: an exploratory study of images and social representations about the pedagogical coordinator

The study examines the social representations of pedagogical coordinators regarding their professional identity and raises the following questions: How does the coordinator perceive his profession? How does he understand others’ views on his role? What images of the coordinator are conveyed by online magazines, and how do these images relate to the coordinator’s own representations? With the support of the theory of social representations, the research examines images of pedagogical coordinators in online magazines and analyses the responses of coordinators to two questions regarding their professional identity. The data was treated by content analysis and image analysis techniques as part of social representations investigations. The results show consensual images about the coordinator and some discrepancies between this image and those that he thinks others have about him. The results contribute to the debate about the construction of this professional identity.