Developing a Professional Identity as an Elementary Teacher of Nature of Science: A self-study of becoming an elementary teacher

This study explores the development of professional identity as a teacher of nature of science (NOS). Our research question was ‘How can a teacher develop a professional identity as an elementary teacher of NOS?' Through a researcher log, videotaped lessons, and collection of student work, we were able to track efforts in teaching NOS as part of regular classroom practice. A team of four researchers interpreted the data through the Beijaard et al. professional identity framework and found that it was not as simple and straightforward to teach NOS as we predicted. Development of professional identity as a teacher of NOS was influenced by contextual factors such as students, administration, and time, as well as personal struggles that were fraught with emotion. Development took place through an interpretation and reinterpretation of self through external factors and others' perceptions, as well as the influence of sub-identities.     

Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of New Counselors

Professional identity development is an important professional issue. Examining the lived experiences of counselors‐in‐training (CITs), the authors used grounded theory methodology to describe the transformational tasks that are required for professional identity development. Tasks include finding a personal definition of counseling, internalizing responsibility for professional growth, and developing a systemic identity—all simultaneously manifesting as students progress from focus on experts to self‐validation. Counselor educators can facilitate movement through these transformational tasks by helping CITs to increase self‐evaluating, self‐motivating, and self‐locating within a professional community.     

Exploring ‘learning lives’: community,identity, literacy and meaning

This article explores the term ‘learning lives’ by reporting on three research projects conducted by members of the Oslo‐based research group TransActions. By stressing the term ‘learning lives’ within a range of social ‘educational’ contexts, the article aims to look at learning within and across different learning sites exploring the positioning and repositioning of learner identity across these different ‘locations’. We emphasise how the individual learner relates to other people and objects, drawing on deeper trajectories or narratives of the self as it exists within and outside the immediate learning contexts. We pay attention to processes occurring between people which we find significant for the individual's identity, literacy and learning. By doing so we hope to make explicit the mobilisation of resources within and across specific contexts, in the ‘learning lives’ of Norwegian youngsters.     

School Principals’ Influence on Trust: Perspectives of Mothers of Children with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

The authors employed a qualitative research design to explore issues of trust in family–professional relationships. They specifically focused on the nature of trust between mothers of children with disabilities and school principals. Analysis of the mothers’ responses to face-to-face interview questions yielded two primary categories related to their perspectives regarding principals: (a) personal and professional principal attributes and (b) principal actions within the education system, with students, and with students’ families. Subcategories were developed that further delineated the relationships participants had with the principals of their children's educational programs. The authors address implications for school leadership and the establishment of trustworthy family-professional relationships, especially as they impact the lives of students and families in need of special education support.     

Autobiographical Research and the Emergence of the Fictive Voice

Autobiographical research is promoted as a means by which educational practitioners can critically analyse their professional lives. This goes beyond the valuable work already done on teachers’ lives by embracing personal critique. However, much of recent psychological research into autobiographical memory, particularly in terms of its veridicality or truth content, has not been widely disseminated within the world of education. This article discusses such research and its application to professional autobiography. It also offers a means forward for further study, emanating from the author's own autobiographical analysis. This is termed the fictive voice. By this is meant memories which, recreated from the perspective of hindsight and one's own self‐schema, are believed incorrectly to be true, but which may, when critiqued, offer the means by which one can arrive at an accurate recreation of one's professional past     

Counselor Educators and Qualitative Research: Affirming a Research Identity

The lack of enthusiastic research activity among counseling professionals has been a subject of professional concern for the last 2 decades. Many graduates of counselor education programs are not connected to academic research and do not establish a research identity. Qualitative research methods have the potential for creating this connection for some students. To increase understanding of the nature and potential usefulness of this paradigm for increasing counselors' connection to academic research, the authors conducted a phenomenological study to investigate the experiences of counselor education doctoral students as they encountered qualitative research. Students' positive responses were summarized as they reflected 4 themes: worldview congruence, theory and skills congruence, research identity and professional viability, and holistic nature of perceptions and experiences.     

The teacher as manager in continuing and professional education

This paper presents a model dealing with the teacher as manager of self‐directed and interactive learning programs and discusses the value of this model for educators working within continuing and professional education contexts. It provides a framework for the planning, implementation and evaluation of learning programs which promote self‐directed and interactive learning and comprises an outline of phases of learning programs and the roles of teachers (and learners) in these programs.

Major goals related to the process of continuing and professional education today include: promotion of the learners’ ability to work and interact effectively together, fostering their commitment to lifelong learning and development of their self‐directed learning skills. The model presented in this paper is a means of promoting the achievement of these goals. It emphasises the development of skills of independence, self‐direction, interaction, communication, leadership, group membership and conflict resolution. Such skills can be transferred to the workplace to enable adults to accomplish their tasks effectively, achieve their goals, work co‐operatively in teams as leaders and team members and take greater responsibility for their work and continued learning.     

The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities

In much educational literature it is recognised that the broader social conditions in which teachers live and work, and the personal and professional elements of teachers' lives, experiences, beliefs and practices are integral to one another, and that there are often tensions between these which impact to a greater or lesser extent upon teachers' sense of self or identity. If identity is a key influencing factor on teachers' sense of purpose, self‐efficacy, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and effectiveness, then investigation of those factors which influence positively and negatively, the contexts in which these occur and the consequences for practice, is essential. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self’ and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, critical engagement with individual teachers' cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ has been relatively rare. Yet such engagement is important to all with an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts which threaten to destabilise long‐held beliefs and practices. This article addresses the issue of teacher identities by drawing together research which examines the nature of the relationships between social structures and individual agency; between notions of a socially constructed, and therefore contingent and ever‐remade, ‘self’, and a ‘self’ with dispositions, attitudes and behavioural responses which are durable and relatively stable; and between cognitive and emotional identities. Drawing upon existing research literature and findings from a four‐year Department for Education and Skills funded project with 300 teachers in 100 schools which investigated variations in teachers' work and lives and their effects on pupils (VITAE), it finds that identities are neither intrinsically stable nor intrinsically fragmented, as earlier literature suggests. Rather, teacher identities may be more, or less, stable and more or less fragmented at different times and in different ways according to a number of life, career and situational factors.     

Authoring oneself and being authored as a competent teacher

What kind of self is being made available and denied to student teachers as they participate in life in their teaching practice schools? In addressing this question empirically, the article seeks to show the forms of meaning being made and experienced by student teachers and the identities that are authored, authorised and constrained. A sociocultural perspective on professional learning, with its emphasis on participation agency and identity, illuminates aspects of the process of becoming a teacher and highlights the tension that is there for students within available meanings. Having to opt to be a teacher at the expense of a learner identity constrains what is available to be appropriated in professional settings with potential consequences for how beginner teachers frame themselves, their learners and their colleagues.     

Teachers as mothers in the elementary classroom: negotiating the needs of self and other

In this paper, I interrogate the implicit and largely unexamined relationship between mothering and elementary teaching as they are informed by dominant notions of caring in the United States. In an environment where students were seen as not receiving adequate care at home, the teachers in this study felt a need to act as mothers in their professional lives. The consequences of such “deficit thinking” for students are well explored in the literature on teaching and learning. What has been less well explored are the consequences of this teacher‐as‐mother notion for teachers themselves. Drawing from the narratives of six women elementary school teachers, I suggest that assuming the role of mother to one's students not only devalues students' identity and experience, but limits teachers' ability to adequately care for themselves.     

Faith,Work, and Praxis: A Process Model of Integration for Christian Student Affairs Administrators

The scholarship regarding faith integration practice has largely focused on faculty work; however, the field faces a paucity of data-supported approaches to understanding faith integration in the work lives of administrators. In this qualitative study, we developed a conceptual model that employs the concept of praxis to analyze the process by which mid-level student affairs administrators integrate their faith in their professional work lives. Findings show that the praxis model illuminates the sources of religious commitment that student affairs administrators drew upon when merging their faith commitments with their work lives. The model also highlights the introspective nature of faith integration, the power dynamics inherent in their interactions with students and superiors, and the individual and systemic change that resulted. Participants' religious habitus, reflective of personal experience as well as professional socialization, were both unconsidered and deliberate. Despite participants' claims that integration occurred organically and reflexively, intentionality before, during, and after integration situations was a hallmark of these exemplars' professional practice. The praxis model may be a valuable professional development tool for individuals, institutions, and graduate programs.     

When mere knowledge is not enough: the potential of bildung as self-determination,co-determination and solidarity

How can higher education educate graduates who know more than ‘just knowledge’? Such an education includes developing in students an awareness of the limits of their knowledge, an ability to discern what kinds of knowledge are appropriate in a given situation and a sensitivity to different forms of knowing. When is scientific rigour appropriate and when is another type of knowing appropriate? When should one set aside own preferences in favour of the needs of others? This paper rethinks ‘bildung’ as a source of ideas on aims for teaching students. Making the arguably ephemeral ideal of bildung work in practice can be an obstacle. This paper, however, takes it as a positive challenge, exploring ways in which bildung might be appropriate in professional education. If bildung can be helpful even within this most applied part of higher education, implications in terms of the development of more readily applicable and fully inclusive notions of bildung would benefit not only professional education but also higher education more generally. Drawing on work by Wolfgang Klafki, the authors argue the value of updated notions of bildung. Klafki's three-part conception of bildung as self-determination, co-determination and solidarity helps reconnect the importance of personal development with that of peer communities (e.g., professional bodies) and action for others. Klafki's framework facilitates working with ethical-epistemological questions such as these.     

In and out of the STEM pipeline – a longitudinal study of a misleading metaphor

ABSTRACT

The metaphor of the leaking pipeline is sometimes used to suggest that some students are lost for STEM as they advance through the educational system. This paper follows a cohort of upper-secondary school students with an interest in STEM from 18 months before their completion of upper-secondary until three years after their completion. Adopting a mixed-methods design, it follows the students' reflections and interests concerning their choice of higher education programme within and/or outside STEM. Only 22% of the students expressed the same interest during the whole period, and 56% changed between different groups of studies, e.g. between STEM and HEALTH. The students' trajectories showed that the leaking-pipeline metaphor is misleading because it suggests a linear and one-way movement, while there were students moving in as well as out of STEM trajectories. The students’ reflections showed identity issues at the level of ego identity, the personal identity and the social identity (Coté and Levine). Particular incidents in the students’ lives and in the outreach programme they were involved in sparked interests and reflections. These incidents should be considered as elements in a continuous reflection concerning who they are and where they would like to go rather than as critical moments.     

The importance of orientation: implications of professional identity on classroom practice and for professional learning

Previous work on new teacher professional identity has focused on identity as a process of negotiation between individual and contextual factors. These negotiations are often filled with a struggle between personal agency and structures that prevent the enactment of an ideal professional self. This study introduces and discusses three teacher professional identity orientations (self, classroom, and dialogic) and the implications of each orientation on a teacher’s professional identity and classroom practice. While each focal teacher featured in the study drew from similar sources of professional identity (experiences as students, classroom practical experience, and theory/research), the teachers varied in the degree of importance accorded to each identity source. This variation led to differences in approach to their roles as teachers as well as differences in their work with students. Using a qualitative, comparative case study methodology to highlight features of each professional identity orientation, this study provides evidence of discourse related to each orientation and discusses implications of identity orientation in each case study teacher’s classroom practice. After the discussion and analysis of the data, the author offers recommendations for teacher educators (pre-service and in-service) and researchers related to understandings of professional identity development and implications for the work of pre-service teacher education and continuing professional development.     

Characterizing the motives and environmental literacy of undergraduate and graduate students who elect environmental programs – a comparison between teaching-oriented and other students

One aspect of the increasing position of sustainability in higher education is establishment of distinct interdisciplinary environment-oriented programs. The point-of-departure of this study is differentiation between teaching- and non-teaching-oriented students, in view of their different respective professional roles in society. The motives and environmental literacy (EL) of incoming students were investigated in three types of sustainability programs in Israel: undergraduate teacher-training, graduate teacher-education and graduate non-teacher programs. For all students acquiring knowledge was the major motive for studies. Undergraduate student-teachers demonstrated the least developed EL, although it is slightly higher than that found for incoming student-teachers a decade ago. Graduate teacher-students displayed strong identity as educational agents-of-change and role-models; however, their limited environmental-knowledge raises questions concerning providing knowledge foundations in undergraduate teacher-training programs, indicating the necessity to supplement this in graduate teacher-programs. Graduate non-teacher students perceive their continuing sustainability-oriented studies as a means for developing an environmental career and enter these programs relatively environmentally-literate. The implications focus on necessary components and characteristics of sustainability-programs directed to teaching- and non-teaching-oriented students. These include the necessity to strengthen the environmental-knowledge component in programs directed to teachers; and embed opportunities for professional internships within graduate programs for non-teachers seeking environmental careers.     

New teachers’ identity shifts at the boundary of teacher education and initial practice

As teachers enter the school communities of their initial practice, they experience identity shifts that reflect their learning. Throughout teacher education they have constructed an identity informed by their previous school experiences, the ideas and approaches promoted by their teacher education programs, and an ideal of the teachers they hope to become. The complex set of influences at the boundary between their lives as students and their lives as professionals causes them to confront their identities in new and sometimes disruptive ways (Flores & Day, 2006). New teaching situations introduce them to the thinking of experienced teachers, and to the needs of their first groups of learners, challenging the notions they have so far developed about who they are as teachers (Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004). This paper reports on interviews with 35 new teachers as they graduate from teacher education programs and enter the profession, and details their learning about agency and role in community resulting in identity changes within this boundary space.     

Through the looking glass … preservice professional portfolio's

Abstract

This article shares one institution's experiences using professional portfolios to assist future teachers in becoming effective practitioners and making the transition between school and work. It describes the portfolio development process and the exit presentations. Both give students a peer/faculty forum to showcase their competencies, growth, and promote reflection, self‐confidence, job search preparedness, and an increased awareness of professional standards. In order to ascertain students’ perceptions regarding the development of a professional portfolio, faculty administered a questionnaire. Student feedback highlighted the benefits of portfolio development and offered suggestions for future improvements. They overwhelmingly viewed the invested time as worthwhile, saw the process as an appropriate program exit assessment, and recommended its continuation with future students. In addition, their suggestions held implications for portfolio use in teacher training programs.     

Bungie Jumping and Supervision of Higher Degree Students

Abstract

This article engages with four key informants from a school into the meaning of soccer in the lives of the informants and the disparity between the school's practice and the cultural meanings attached to soccer, at the school and community‐based clubs. We will demonstrate how their ability and the cultural knowledge developed through playing club soccer over most of their lives provided them with an identity and meaningful membership in communities built around soccer. Drawing on Bourdieu (1884), we see this physical and cultural knowledge as embodied capital. While it provided them with meaningful membership, social status and position within the communities of their soccer clubs, it had far less value at school. Within the community of the school, their embodied cultural capital provided them with few opportunities to develop a sense of social distinction, personal identity, self‐expression and self‐determination.     

Experiences in Sense Making: Health Science Students’ I-Positioning in an Online Philosophy of Science Course

This article reports on a qualitative study on the dialogical approach to learning in the context of higher education. The aim was to shed light on the I-Position and multivoicedness in students’ identity building and to provide empirical substantiation for these theoretical constructs, focusing especially on the connection between personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge. The study explored how health science students’ reflections on their work and discipline-related experiences provided resources for making personal sense of and understanding the subject studied. The students took an online course on the philosophy of science. To study students’ internal and external dialogue in terms of multivoicedness in their sense-making processes I combined a discourse analysis with a dialogical approach. The results showed that in reflecting on their experiences in light of different scientific approaches, the students became engaged in dialogues with different voices, thereby experiencing tensions in their professional positioning. The reasoning tasks gave rise to internal dialogue, involving negotiation between different I-Positions of the self or heterodialogue with the texts. These identity negotiations were manifested in refining, strengthening, and reconstructing professional and scientific I-Positions and in sharing and constructing a We-Position.     

A “Chameleonic” Identity: Foreign-Born Doctoral Students in U.S. Counselor Education

This study explored the interplay between a multidimensional model of acculturation and professional identity development among eight foreign-born doctoral students in U.S. counselor education. Themes generated through an interpretive phenomenological analysis revealed that the participants, while trying to adapt to the Euro-American cultural context of their counselor programs, experienced a sense of conflict, loss, and grief, resulting in what they called a “chameleonic” professional identity. Findings illustrated that for international counseling students, professional identity development is an arduous and complex process deeply intertwined with their acculturation experiences. Implications for counselor programs and future research are further discussed.