UNESCO discourse on the teaching profession: An exploratory study from key global reports

UNESCO recently issued a new global report in which it considered a new social contract that updates the organization’s discourse on the teaching profession. This research study therefore pursues two goals: on the one hand, analysis of the discourse in the UNESCO’s two latest reports (1996, 2021), and on the other hand, identification of the role played in them by the main characteristics of teaching. This involved two complementary methodologies: content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The two reports were analyzed using MAXQDA Analytics Pro2022 software, with reference to the study by Donaire Gallardo et al. (2022), which described the main characteristics of teaching policies. This revealed a change in discourse in the latest UNESCO report, with a humanist approach prevailing over a functionalist one, and with teachers considered to be the key stakeholders in policies for developing the new social contract in question.