This article presents the results of a quantitative investigation on social representations about the development of critical thinking of a group of teachers in training (n=41). The teaching of social sciences was taken as reference in the construction of these representations. Results show that the representations take on the development of this type of thinking as something that is not innate in students and that the teacher has an important and central role in the control of the group and the information. The answers to the items of thought development do not show statistically significant differences by gender, semester or by having taken an introductory course and having allowed for the social representation of this group whose common element was to be students of a teacher training program. © 2018 Associacao Nacional de Pos-Graduacao e Pesquisa em Educacao-ANPEd.