Dr. Fatima Aparecida Cezarin dos Santos holds a Doctoral degree in Linguistic Studies, in the concentration area of Applied Linguistics-Language Teaching and Learning from State University of São Paulo (Universidade Estadual Paulista – UNESP). As well, she holds a Master Degree in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – PUCSP) in the research line Language and Education. In addition, a lato sensu course in Teaching Profession in Higher Education from PUCSP. She is a member of the Research Group GESFoPLE – Sociocultural Studies in the Foreign Language Teachers Education Group (original as Grupo de Estudos socioculturais na formação de professores de línguas estrangeiras), under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Maria Helena Vieira Abrahão at UNESP, São José do Rio Preto campus.
Her Doctoral and Master researches have focused on the foreign language teacher education, especially, English language as a foreign or additional language in Brazilian context. The settings of her ethnographic-based researches were public schools situated in low-income communities, having the Sociocultural-historical Theory (Vigotski and his collaborators) and bakhtinian theory as their theoretical foundations. Methodologically, the Dialectical Historical Materialism Method (Marx; Marx and Engels) draws them. The theoretical and methodological basis support the conception of the individual, the education and the world in a sociocultural and historical view through a dialectic interpretation of the phenomena in investigation, in which language and mind development are concerned.
She is the author of the book “Too much talking in the classroom: the schooling indiscipline under reflection. A dialectical-dialogical interpretation of Applied Linguistics” (original as Falação em sala de aula: a indisciplina escolar em reflexão. Uma interpretação dialético-dialógica da Linguística Aplicada) as the fruit of her Master dissertation.
The researcher’s concerns are the foreign language teacher education in the sociocultural perspective as a lens to understand what, how and why teachers do what they do, considering the social, economic, educational and political elements involved in their practice. Ultimately, the teaching practice is viewed as situated, which means to see the foreign language teacher’s profession in an ethical view, and, likewise, their initial and continuing education. Her most recent interest in researching is the relation between mediated human agency and the glocal knowledge development in the foreign language teachers’ actions.