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Collaborative research carried out by four researchers from the School of Education of the University of São Paulo, Brasil, and 22 teachers from a public secondary school that prepares teachers for primary grades. This 4-year case study aimed to promote professional growth and to facilitate the building up of a critical teaching community, in an educational environment characterised by strong bureaucracy, central decisions, very low salaries and apathetic students, who will be teachers in the first grades, where we find high rates of retention and drop out. This text shows 2 years of partnership. The schoolteachers started questioning the school practices. To deepen their understanding, they developed investigative projects in which they engaged the students. They systematised and wrote down all this process, and presented it in an educational research meeting. This experience of detachment, systematisation and professional valorisation brought personal growth and professional commitment. Teachers enrolled themselves in systematic studies, started participating in union and professional groups, and are constructing better and more productive relationship with their students. The group is just beginning to create and test curriculum activities, but it faces strong difficulties: job instability, conflict relationships with the administrative staff, deficiencies in the pre-service formation and lack of instructional resources in the school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]