Practitioner notes

Introduction and review of the literature

The term generation has been used in several senses since the last decades of the 20th century (Feixa & Leccardi, 2010). Generally, generation is associated with two distinct concepts: age group and a group of people born in the same historical period. The first concept understands that people change age groups as they get older, and thus, they will inevitably belong to different generations. In this sense, the perception that these people can incorporate social, cultural and symbolic elements is preserved, adapting to the aspects of the current time. In the second concept, generation is thought of as people who carry the marks of their historical period. Despite changing age groups throughout life, each person would belong to a single generation, and their place in the world would be defined from cultural, conceptual, worldview, behaviors and language aspects of a historical period, thus reflecting on the construction of a certain identity. The two meanings are important. The first is relevant to think about public policies for different population groups, for example, health actions, education and income distribution among the age groups of the population of a country. The second is useful for identifying behavioral changes, coexistence, intergenerational conflicts, ways of learning, work organization, and consumption of a generation (Gosseries, 2008; McCrindle & Wolfinger, 2014).

On the other hand, both concepts have limitations regarding their universalist perspective, as they somehow ignore the complexity and diversity of people’s psychosocial development processes at the same historical time. Since people of the same age or at similar stages of development can have a number of social and cultural experiences at the same historical moment, it can be somewhat limiting to attribute a homogeneous character to a generational group. However, in the scope of this work, we also emphasize the enhancing character of the generation concept to discuss a phenomenon of access to and use of digital information and communication technologies (DICT), which seems to be common to people of a same generation, even if we consider, for example, the economic inequalities and disadvantages of some groups in the same society. An example that can clarify this argument is that in Brazil, access to smartphones and, as a consequence, messaging apps, is very widespread (Oliveira, Carvalho, Monteiro, & Carvalho, 2020). The use of those technological resources increased communication possibilities between children and young people, especially in the context of school closure in the Covid-19 pandemic, as those apps work as important pedagogical tools (Carvalho, Carvalho, & Carvalho, 2021). However, this technological communication vehicle also allowed older users with less schooling and a critical sense to access disinformation frequently and quickly (François & Monteiro, 2022)

Technological development is known to have produced significant advances hitherto unimaginable for humanity as advances in the forms of communication, interaction, work, production of goods and services, and education. Virtually all human, material, and immaterial production today is mediated by digital technologies. Thus, incorporating the technological development of society, particularly the DICT, to this idea of generation and its social, cultural, organizational impacts and its contribution to the historical marks (or characteristics) of each generation is an aspect to be considered.

Thus, after the Second World War, five generations are defined, considered the determining role of technological development. Although there is no consensus among the authors on the exact periods for each generation, we often find in the literature the following definitions: baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964); generation X (born between 1965 and 1977); generation Y (born between 1978 and 1992); generation z (born between 1993 and 2009), and more recently the Generation Alpha (born as of 2010) (McCrindle et al., 2014; Ramadlani & Wibisono, 2017; Tapscott, 2010; dos-Reis, 2018). To understand the importance of the latter, it is necessary to explain the particular characteristics of those generations. In this definition, each generation carries specific traits that reflect their historical moment, leaving their mark on society. Obviously, those characteristics are not homogeneous, as they also reflect the sociocultural aspects of each context. Besides, technologies also printed new determinations.

The baby boomers received a kind of rigid and disciplinary education. However, they experienced significant social and cultural changes as they grew up, such as the popularization of TV and globalization. In turn, people of generation X, in many contexts, were censored by dictatorships and fought against these regimes and for more freedom. From a technological point of view, they witnessed the emergence of the first personal computers and the advent of the internet, thus experiencing a moment of technological transition. Generation Y, also known as milleniuns, for being immersed in a totally technological world with a strong connection to the internet and digital media, differs from the previous generation for living times of greater freedom, autonomy, and economic growth. Besides, people experienced changes in the family structure, such as women in the labour market and the reduction in the number of children, which led to new arrangements in which children’s education became a priority (Oliveira, 2019; Tapscott, 2010; Viegas, 2015). Generation Z has a more intimate relationship with the media. People from this generation are considered digital natives because they had contact with such technologies from an early age. They experienced the popularization of mobile phones and their applications for various purposes, particularly instant communication, but also the consumption of new products such as games, as well as new forms of access to music, movies, videos, and news (Ramadlani et al., 2017; dos-Reis, 2018).This generation is also characterized by its ease to engage in digital social movements and create virtual communities. It is also considered the most tolerant and open generation and can easily express bodily and sexual freedom (Duffy et al., 2018). There are other implications in this portrayal of generations, such as the formation of identities, their ways of learning with repercussions on educational changes, and their role in the labour market.

In the specific case of Brazil, a good part of these characteristics described in the literature about each generation reflects, in a way, their experience with the impacts of globalization, counterculture movements and the advent of technology and digital media. However, the economic structure and diversity of sociocultural processes in Brazil imprints other particular characteristics, for example: the baby boomer generation in Brazil fought against the military dictatorship and participated in social movements for social rights and freedoms. Currently, members of this generation are close to retirement, but they continue to work and are engaged in social struggles and mark the history of their time. Generation X grew up in a time of political transition and uncertainties about the future, with the constant devaluation of the national currency, hyperinflation, but, at the very least, they experienced access to new information technologies. Generation Y has already grown up in a political and social democratic context, with a globalized economy and the heyday of the economic plan of the Real (current Brazilian currency), and with wide access to the internet. This generation saw economic growth when Brazil became an economic promise along with the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Generation Z, in turn, is experiencing the great transformations of today, totally immersed in digital technologies, and has used them to defend agendas, freedoms, gender affirmation, sexual diversity, and the fight against racism, sexism and other prejudices (Viegas, 2015). These characteristics can be experienced differently, given the cultural and socioeconomic diversity of the Brazilian population, as well as the contemporary political context, marked by political polarization, neoconservatism and dismantling of public policies.

The term Generation Alpha was used by Australian sociologistMcCrindle et al. (2014) to designate those born as of 2010. The term alpha is used because, being the first letter of the Greek alphabet, it marks the beginning of a new generational cycle. There is no consensus among researchers about how long this generation will last or when a new generation will emerge. Gen Alpha corresponds to the current children, who will soon become adolescents and young adults. This generation has had contact with various types of digital technologies that influence cognitive processes and identity construction from an early age. The development of Gen Alpha people is believed to be different from previous generations because it happens in a context of high technological evolution, which demands specific skills and characteristics, which will require changes in teaching, learning, consuming, working, and using technologies (McCrindle et al., 2014; Tootell, Freeman, & Freeman, 2014; dos-Reis, 2018). This generation may experience differentiations in the education system, which autonomy and customization of teaching may mark according to each student’s competencies and skills and future projects.

As we can assume, the development of Generation Alpha heralds great challenges for education and particularly for teacher education, as it is believed to need an education connected with its time, compatible with the skills they developed from a very early age. There is still another variable to that assertion: educational contexts are formed by the interaction of different generations, which implies learning possibilities, where one generation can learn from the other in dialogical relations, but also by clashes and conflicts, especially regarding teaching approaches in which digital media are not yet considered.

Brazil has a large territorial area with a population of more than 213 million inhabitants. Most Brazilians undergo several structural problems, such as poverty, social inequality, and lack of access to basic living conditions for most of its population. Those problems pose major challenges for education, such as lack of adequate training for teachers, low quality of teaching processes, the precarious structure of schools and regional inequalities that impact the conduct of educational policies (Macêdo, Monteiro, & Carvalho, 2020). In this formative environment -both in basic school and higher education- there are other aspects related to the coexistence between generations, for example, the unequal access and use of technological resources and how the different generations experience and incorporate them. Generation Alpha should be considered by educational policies, as data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2010) indicate that 20.65% of the population consists of children and adolescents born as of 2010, which means over 20 million children. Most of them can be considered hyperconnected, which demonstrates the need for pedagogical approaches that meet their skills, i.e., an education connected with the technological development and the requirements of this society. We can say that in Brazil, the challenges of this generation are on the agenda of discussions for the construction of educational policies, which are under permanent review to connect with the needs of future generations in terms of quality of education, access to technologies and development of new teaching approaches. We can also infer that while seeking its place in the world, this generation will face new challenges, different from the previous generations, both in the local and global context, considering the signs and effects of various crises: climate, water, migration, and health (the more often emergency of pandemics).

To discuss this social context, one can resort to the concept of society in networks as “a social structure based on networks operated by information and communication technologies” (Castells, 2006, p. 20). In this assertion, the author points out that this society has promoted great changes in our communication and in our codes of life because it reproduces itself on a global scale and changes our social structure in the economy, labour market, science, technologies, communication, and education. Thus, in this society emerges a new profile of workers who need to be flexible to adapt to the changes in contemporary society. The construction of this profile will require converting the educational model into a learning process that teaches learning that requires new pedagogies, content, and learning processes (Castells, 2006).

Colis (2006) explains that the technological paradigm of the networked society points to a practical profile within this society: mobility of services, information, valuation of knowledge, capacity to work in teams and with interdisciplinary themes, need to work with digital technologies for information management, communication, creation, and learning. This profile points to three aspects that require a change in education: the mastery of technologies, knowledge management, and the development of creative capacity.

By recognizing the transformations in society and its technological development, international organizations have indicated the need to build new alternative models of education that include technologies in the teaching processes and that exploit collaboration and research. Those recommendations are in UNESCO documents (2009) and the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), the normative document that defines an organic and progressive set of learning essential for basic school that all students must develop throughout their education. Among the general competencies of education, article 5 lists.

Understand, use and create digital information and communication technologies in a critical, meaningful, reflective, and ethical way in the various social practices (including school practices) to communicate, access, and disseminate information, produce knowledge, solve problems, and exercise protagonism and authorship in personal and collective life

(Ministério-da-Educação,2018, p. 9)

Some of those requirements that emerge from this new social organization relate to the characteristics described in the literature on Gen Z, but which are projected more intensely for future generations.

In this sense, this article aims to analyze the formative experiences of teaching degree undergraduates at a Brazilian public university to teach future generations. Therefore, this study also seeks to characterize students from their generation, identify whether they feel prepared to work with the new generations, given the development of digital technologies and the characteristics attributed to Generation Alpha. And, in a way, verify whether digital information and communication technologies are part of their academic education.

Materials and methods

This research is exploratory for it seeks to deepen themes still underdeveloped by the construction of concepts, development of ideas, and proposition of more specific problems for future studies. Then, we want to develop an overview of the issue (Gil, 2008).

This is a qualitative study, as it aims to analyze the participants’ academic formative experiences, particularising them in their subjective, cultural, and symbolic aspects, without seeking to generalize their results to a given population. Thus, we aim to illustrate the characteristics and experiences of the researched group to deepen the discussion on the investigated topic.

Thus, we chose teaching degree undergraduates from a public university in the Northeast of Brazil, which ranks among the 20 best universities in Brazil (Oliveira, 2021), to participate in the study. A teaching degree (licenciatura) is a full undergraduate degree that aims to qualify a teacher to work in basic education (UFPE, 2017). The education centre where the study was conducted was created in 1975 and currently offers pedagogical disciplines for 20 different undergraduate courses: Pedagogy, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biological Sciences, Physical Education, Music, Letters (Portuguese, French, Spanish, English, Libras), Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Graphic Expression, Dance, History, Geography, Philosophy, and Social Sciences. Each course is structured with its own curriculum, defined from national guidelines and based on a specific course pedagogical project. The teaching degree courses of that institution aim to:

train professionals, qualified in their specific areas, capable of: analyzing the complexity of educational phenomena and their articulations with the social, economic, political, and cultural reality; acting in different teaching and learning processes of the various areas of knowledge, interacting with teachers and professionals from other disciplines; acting critically and creatively in the educational system and in related contexts .

(UFPE, 2017, p. 31)

A questionnaire was applied through Google Forms. This data collection modality was chosen due to the suspension of face-to-face classes in Brazilian public universities since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, students are in remote education, and thus, we gave priority to a virtual collection, respecting sanitary measures.

The questionnaire made available to students consisted of five parts. In part 1, the participant had access to the Informed Consent Form, which explained the objectives of the study, its risks, and the participants' rights, as well as the right to anonymity, to have assistance in case of any damage, and to withdraw their participation at any time, in accordance with guidelines established by the National Council of Ethics in Scientific Research with Human Beings in Brazil. Only after this consent the other parts were made available. Part 2 consisted of items related to the characterization of the socioeconomic profile and education. The remaining parts combined open and closed items: questions about the participants' knowledge of the Alpha Generation (part 3); characterization of the participants' generation (part 4); questions about digital technologies and academic qualification (part 5).

The researchers met with the professors of the subjects taught by the Department of Psychology and Educational Guidance (DPOE) in the first half of 2021, to explain the objectives of the study so that the professors could socialize the collection instrument with the students. In that semester, ten classes participated in the investigation with an average of 300 students. It is noteworthy that those subjects are offered to students from 20 undergraduate courses who study pedagogical subjects at the education center (EC), hence the diversity of participants in different initial teacher education courses. Given the qualitative nature of the investigation and the universe studied, a convenience sample was chosen. As an inclusion criterion, students should be taking courses offered by DPOE professors in that semester.

We obtained a feedback from 57 respondents. The respondents were identified with the letter P (participant), followed by numbers that express the order of their reports, for example, P1, P2 and so on until the number 57.

From the systematization of the data and their subsequent analysis, we decided to organize the interpretation into three categories linked to the questions brought by the participants, namely:

• Socioeconomic characterization of the participants

• Generation Alpha and future perspectives

• The training experiences, methodologies and the Generation Alpha

Each category gathered some questions that reflected the students’ experience. During this process, the concepts of background and foreground (Skovsmose, 2014) were used to assist the analytical process. In the end, we assessed the findings and sought to make other theoretical inferences.

Analysis and results

In this section, we discuss the answers of the 57 participants who completed the semi-structured questionnaire. Initially, we present some data of socioeconomic characterization of the participants who helped us to interpret their answers about Generation Alpha.

Discussion and conclusions

The discussion about Gen Alpha and its implications for prospective teachers’ education, considering that they will work with this generation and with future generations, is relevant because it brings elements to assume a preeminent social problem, namely: how the rapid social transformations expressed by technological development change our forms of communication, work, relationships, leaving marks that are felt in the way we educate new generations.

From the analysis, it seems to us that there is an understanding of the definition and characteristics of the Alpha generation for most participants. They recognize those characteristics and are able to identify them in today's children, both with their use and ease with digital technologies and in more behavioral aspects. Therefore, they consider it important that these aspects are present in their education, as they recognize that their undergraduate courses do not prepare them enough to teach new generations.

Still on qualification, despite recognizing the importance of conventional methodologies, they suggest that changes are needed, such as new methods and especially with the adoption of the use of digital information and communication technologies. Students seem to understand the rapid changes that occur in society and understand that to critically accompany them, it is essential to master technological tools.

It also seemed to us that when experiencing intergenerational conflicts in their training, particularly in relation to teachers, the students fear suffering this type of conflict if they do not have adequate training to work with future generations. Perhaps, for this reason, they question some teachers' traditional methods and authoritarian stances. Thus, their opinions suggest the creation of a more interactive environment, mediated by technology, more human and also democratic, where there is no space for rigid postures and actions disconnected from their realities.

Most of the participants belong to Generation Z, but as observed, they share characteristics of other generations, which, as indicated, may be a characteristic of the Brazilian context. Our reflections also lead us to consider that the characteristics that are commonly associated with generations should not be fetishized, as there is a risk of turning them into allegories, driving the focus away from the central issue, in our view, the implications of technological development for the eduction of new teachers.

This time, participants with all their particularities -which include low socioeconomic power, coming from popular classes, residents of more impoverished regions and deemed behind time by the Brazilian elite- could participate, elaborate questions and reflections that challenge this fetishization. Obviously, the need to transform educational models and incorporate technologies is recognized, but without losing social contacts, values, and human presence in this process. Perhaps this recognition arose from the context of the Covid-19 pandemic we are going through. Technologies have favoured and are mediating the continuity of their qualifications, despite being against what some think and forcing students and teachers to adjust, develop new skills, and learn (Carius, 2021).

Thus, we can say that we all collaborate with our backgrounds (Skovsmose, 2014), both from the historical-cultural marks of our generation and the changes and learning that we promote throughout life. Generations are not static; they grow and change. And in this growth, there is a great possibility of building foregrounds, i.e., what we want for the future. This desire, in turn, signals for more open education, open to the different, more welcoming, more interactive and technological too. For them, who are living these experiences and for future generations.

The new generations easily incorporate technology and develop their skills, and it is their right to have appropriate training to expand and strengthen them. Thus, the technological repertoire should be incorporated into the school critically and creatively through more dialogic, interactive, participatory, and democratic methodologies. Only in this way, the future (hyper-connected, as they say) generations will develop a critical sense, autonomy, and flexibility that can be constituted as historical marks of their time.