Identity formation in educational settings: A critical focus for education in the 21st century

There is growing recognition that identity formation must become an important focus in education. Particularly in the 21st century, when modes of knowledge construction and accessibility to different types of knowledge are rapidly increasing and diversifying, academic learning cannot be divorced from students’ development of values, goals, social roles, and worldviews. The articles in this special issue present a diverse collection of research on students’ identity formation in educational settings. Yet, despite the diversity in perspectives, educational contexts, samples, and research and analytic methods, all of the articles highlight the role of the educational context in identity formation processes. We begin this introduction with a brief review of the increasing attention to identity formation in education. We follow with synopses of each of the articles in this special issue.     

(Trans)lating Identity: Exploring Discursive Strategies for Navigating the Tensions of Identity Gaps

This study explored the formation and expression of gender identity among 19 self-identified transgender individuals through the use of qualitative, in-depth interviews. Through the lens of the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI), we examined how trans* individuals form and perform gender identity, the tensions produced between identity frames, and the discursive strategies used to navigate those tensions. We identified the manifestation of three specific identity gaps: personal-enacted, personal-relational, and enacted-relational. Furthermore, we discovered four discursive strategies previously recognized for navigating tensions that emerge from identity gaps: closeted enactment, passing, disengagement, and label changing, and we identified a fifth discursive strategy—hyper-engagement—used to navigate these tensions. Results revealed that these identity layers and discursive strategies collaboratively manifest and coalesce in response to specific communicative contexts. Our results are discussed within the resounding call for greater understanding of trans* identity formation and expression.     

Narratives, choices, alienation, and identity: learning from an elementary science teacher

As we contemplate on teacher identity research, there is a need to place a teacher’s narratives or story-lines at the center of that work. In this forum, in response to the insightful commentary from Stephen Ritchie and Maria Iñez Mafra Goulart and Eduardo Soares, I place a greater emphasis on understanding Daisy’s narratives from an existing social identity framework. Narratives tell us intricate and complex actions that a teacher has taken both personally and professionally. Additionally, narratives help us see implicit nature of identity explicitly. Therefore, a greater focus has to be placed on interactions and utterances of a teacher to make sense of who they are and what they do as expressed by their own words (identity and action). Finally, I join with Ritchie and Goulart and Soares to advocate that identity research needs to include participants as co-researchers and co-authors as identities are very personal and complex to be fully understood by the outsiders (researchers).     

Beyond Native and Nonnative: Translingual Dispositions for More Inclusive Teacher Identity in Language and Literacy Education

ABSTRACT

This article proposes translingual dispositions as a way to move beyond the NES/NNES dichotomy in understanding language teacher identity. Recent scholarship in TESOL and Applied Linguistics has problematized the NES/NNES binary from a poststructuralist perspective, highlighting how NES/NNES subjectivities are discursively and performatively (co-)constructed and negotiated. Despite the efforts to empower NNESs, the very binary reifies monolingual ideologies. This article argues that translingual dispositions can help move beyond the binary and complicate theorization of teachers’ identities and practice. To illustrate, we report an ethnographic case study of a “NES” teacher, Daphne, and examine how Daphne’s translingual dispositions shape her teaching and facilitate her students’ creative negotiation of monolingual norms in a writing course. We conclude by discussing future research directions and the implications for language teacher education in fostering translingual dispositions.     

The impact of AVID tutoring on developing a teacher identity Bradley Bowen,Stacy Duffield

ABSTRACT

There is extensive research demonstrating the benefit tutoring has on the tutee. However, minimal research exists about the impact tutoring has on the tutor, and particularly, how being a tutor influences pre-service teacher development during teacher preparation. Using qualitative measures, we documented the influence participating in the tutoring program, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), has on a pre-service teacher’s development of their teacher identity, predominantly in the areas of pedagogical knowledge and practice. We revealed how the AVID tutoring program influenced the tutors’ development of their teacher identity, implications of the findings, and areas for future research and practice.     

Fashioning curriculum reform as identity politics—Taiwan's dilemma of curriculum reform in new millennium

This paper explores indigenization and globalization, the double issue of curriculum and identity as a dialectical contradiction that characterizes the ambivalence of “Taiwanese identity.” “Taiwanese identity” is treated as a social, political, and cultural construct rather than a fixed term in an essentialist sense. Curriculum, as culture's medium of social identity construction, represents a struggle over who constructs whose identity and what is constructed. Therefore, when curriculum reform is called for, it is also a time when a society transitioning and redrawing its socio-political and cultural boundaries to resolve internal social conflicts and identity anxiety. Curriculum reform, in this paper, is analyzed not only as a question of shifting explicit ideas of educational practice but also a question of shifting configurations in power relations that signify a politics of identity.The historical context that brought about the question of identity in Taiwan is introduced first. The second section discusses how emerging curricula were politically, socially, and culturally implicated in the process of constructing a Taiwan-centric identity. The third section analyzes the political, social, cultural, and educational implications of new curricula on the formation of a Taiwan-centric identity. Finally, the paper discusses the effect of globalization on the practice of new curricula and points out an ambivalence of local–global identity construction and the conflicting roles of education, especially curriculum, in this ambivalence.     

顶岗实习：合法的边缘性参与——泰山学院教师教育模式创新

基于对现代教师教育模式的反思与审查,教师教育逐步由个人认知取向的“知识中心论“转型为“身份”与“知识”并重的人类学的教师教育模式.其方式是将“顶岗实习”作为创新点,通过让大学生“合法的边缘性参与”中小学教学实践共同体来形成身份认同和专业知识.建构专业身份认同是教师教育的核心,建构与身份相适应的专业知识是教师教育的重要内涵.自2010年以来,泰山学院教师教育学院以顶岗实习为突破口,让师范生通过“合法的边缘性参与”中小学的教学实践,以此推动教师教育实践的转型,实现了教师教育模式创新.     

Continuity and change: The teaching and research of Islam in South(ern) Africa

Abstract

Despite being minority religious communities in the Southern African region, Muslims have carved out for themselves a unique identity within a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and a multi-religious region. As a result of the variety of Muslim education programs and institutions that the community had set up over the past few decades its representatives made an interesting contribution towards the region. In the discipline of ‘Islamic Studies’, which began as a minor subject within the field of Oriental and Missiological studies respectively at the beginning of the 1960s, underwent remarkable changes by the mid 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s when fully-fledged programs were designed and mounted at specific Southern Africa's universities. The continuities and changes that took place from the mid 1970s onwards were as a result of the growing interest in this discipline. The essay's objective is to discuss the study and research of ‘Islam’ undertaken by individuals in the Southern Africa with special focus on South Africa where there have been major developments in the Muslim educational circles for more than a half a century (circa 1960–2010); it, however, employs ‘identity’ as a significant analytical tool in scholarship and the production of knowledge about Islam within the Southern African context.     

The scholarship of research in teacher education in a higher education institution in transition: Issues of identity

This paper examines perceptions of professional and organizational identity of teacher educators in a ‘new’ University of Technology in South Africa, resulting from several recent mergers of colleges of education and colleges of technology mainly serving formerly disadvantaged students and schools. The findings show that most staff consider teaching and research as dichotomous. Research activities are seen to satisfy the institutional requirements for securing research funding and producing publications. Professional identities could be strengthened by a faculty-wide debate on the specific profile of teacher education in a University of Technology, resulting also in an agreed research ethos. Peer support in collaborative research groups with a focus on own practice is seen as an opportunity to strengthen research expertise.     

Revisiting the teachers' lounge: Reflections on emotional experience and teacher identity

This essay explores the relationship between emotion and teacher identity, using a framework of personal experience and published research from a variety of disciplines. The author argues that an increased awareness of emotional experience serves not only to increase rapport among educators, but also to counteract the persistent dehumanization of the teaching profession in our current sociopolitical context. She highlights the work of other educational scholars to suggest various means by which this awareness can be cultivated in research and teaching practice.     

Advances in research on classroom dialogue: learning outcomes and assessments

The goal of this special issue is to examine how certain modes of classroom dialogue might contribute to students' learning outcomes. The articles in this special issue share the idea of classroom talk as a problem-oriented dialogue. In other words, an interactional configuration based on exchanges among students and teachers that go beyond the predominantly monologic approaches of classroom talk. In each of the contributions to this special issue, different types of learning outcomes were studied as a result of specific ways of orchestrating classroom dialogue. All in all, the studies in this special issue yield a picture of the field as a productive research area: they provide evidence for the plausibility of the assumption that dialogic orchestrations of classroom talk may produce various desired learning and developmental outcomes in students, depending on what outcomes we want to articulate, and how they are assessed. Although the studies in this special issue yield promising results for future improvements of classroom practice more (preferably longitudinal) research is required.     

Identity formation of teacher–mentors: An analysis of contrasting experiences using a Wengerian matrix framework

In order to understand the process of identity formation in a community of practice, Wenger (2002) proposes a matrix framework whereby three qualities (connectedness, expansiveness and effectiveness) are matched against three modes of belonging (engagement, imagination and alignment). In this paper we use this framework to analyse the experiences of two teacher–mentors and interpret how their identities are formed during the process of mentoring student–teachers. Factors that contribute significantly to the development of their identity include the school culture, the ‘personalities’ of the other community members, and the influence of other relevant communities of practice.     

Negotiating identity and science teaching in a high-stakes testing environment: an elementary teacher’s perceptions

This study draws upon a qualitative case study to investigate the impact of the high-stakes test environment on an elementary teacher’s identities and the influence of identity maintenance on science teaching. Drawing from social identity theory, I argue that we can gain deep insight into how and why urban elementary science teachers engage in defining and negotiating their identities in practice. In addition, we can further understand how and why science teachers of poor urban students engage in teaching decisions that accommodate school demands and students’ needs to succeed in high-stakes tests. This paper presents in-depth experiences of one elementary teacher as she negotiates her identities and teaching science in school settings that emphasize high-stakes testing. I found that a teacher’s identities generate tensions while teaching science when: (a) schools prioritize high-stakes tests as the benchmark of teacher success and student success; (b) activity-based and participatory science teaching is deemphasized; (c) science teacher of minority students identity is threatened or questioned; and (d) a teacher perceives a threat to one’s identities in the context of high stakes testing. Further, the results suggest that stronger links to identities generate more positive values in teachers, and greater possibilities for positive actions in science classrooms that support minority students’ success in science.

论华裔文学身份的多重建构——以伍慧明的《骨》为例

由于历史断层和文化错位之类社会现象的逐渐普及和日益深化,对于文化身份的各种认同问题业已构成当代华裔美国文学的重要主题之一。本文运用当代文化研究思潮中身份研究的相关理论,分析小说《骨》中两代人的文化经历和身份经验,并在对“身份危机”的多重意义进行深度解读的过程中,以鲜活的文学经验不断加深对于华裔身份杂体性的认知视角和阅读体验。     

质的研究中研究者个人身份问题探析

研究者个人身份的反省在质的研究中具有重要意义。研究者个人身份的探讨,其本质就是对于研究者体性特征、研究者个人冲突、研究者与研究对象保持的研究关系的现实审视,这也是反思研究者个人身份的三个基本维度。研究者个人身份构建的现实策略是：研究者体性印象的管理;研究者＂前见＂中介作用的发挥;研究者＂附加身份＂的退场;研究者情感的在场。     

论教育研究主体与实践主体的合一性

教育研究主体与实践主体的合一性是教育研究主体与对象关系特殊性的表现。其现实性存在取决于人们把实践性作为教育研究价值的主要取向;其功能特点表现为反思性、解放性与创造性。它是教育理论研究走向本土化和独立化的要求,是教育改革走向成功的必由之路。     

Bulking Up (Identities): A Communication Framework for Male Fitness Identity

The goal of this interview study is to build upon a rich history of masculinities research, complicating the arenas in which masculinity is communicated, performed, negotiated, and enacted. Using Hecht’s communication theory of identity, analysis of this data reveals that men pursuing fitness find misalignment between the personal, relational, and enacted frames. Consequently, they engage in a host of discursive strategies to manage the uncertainty that is produced by these identity gaps. This study identifies three: excessive body discipline, forceful negotiation, and constant comparison. By exploring these gaps and strategies, this study aims to situate fitness as a space ripe for the production of identity work and as an intersectional identity element.     

GOLEM,FROM PRAGUE TO CYBERSPACE: THE USE OF CSCL IN CULTURAL EDUCATION FOR DIASPORAS

In this paper we describe and theorize about a computer‐supported and mediated educational research project which encourages cultural production and sustainability. We first describe the CD‐Golem project which was developed in light of the perceived needs of a Diaspora community's attempts to impart its youth with a sense of belonging and continuity. Next we characterize Cultural Education and discuss the theoretical rationale of our approach in the context of current theories of identity and cultural construction, multicultural education and computer‐supported collaborative learning. We conclude by reviewing briefly and evaluating critically some of the lessons we have learned in our first years of activity.     

Academic identities and communities of practice in a professional discipline

This paper explores the dynamics surrounding the formation of academic identities in a context where the nature of academic work is contested both as a result of tensions within the discipline and in response to pressure from both the institution and the field of higher education. It is based on a case study which investigated the process of academic identity formation at the micro level of a department at a South African university. The study revealed a complex relationship between identity construction and participation within the particular configuration of teaching, professional and research communities of practice that defined the academic field in the department. Multiple identity trajectories were evident, indicating the role of individual agency, despite the dominance of a professional community of practice within the department. The arrival of new academics in the department without professional practice experience was found to have created the possibility of a changed notion of the academic within the discipline.     

The Role of Generational Communication Differences in the Development of a Positive Gay Midlife Identity

This study draws upon interviews and thematic analysis to explore the role of gay midlife men’s perceived communication differences from their younger counterparts in the formation of a positive age identity. Utilizing the identity process theory as a sensitizing framework, interviews with 40 midlife gay men (aged 40–53) addressed participants’ perceptions of generational communication differences that had positively contributed to gay age identity formation. Coding resulted in three themes of communication difference: communicative finesse, face-to-face orientation, and masculine expression. The themes contribute to an expanded understanding of the role of communication in positive perceptions of gay midlife.