Enacting and/or contesting the ‘normal TA body’: social location and the experiences of teaching assistants

Abstract

ABSTRACT While social location substantially impacts faculty experiences on university campuses, comparatively little research has explored the experiences of undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants (TAs). Drawing on semi-structured interviews, this study explores how TAs at one Canadian university construct their identities as they teach. We employ the concepts of self-presentation and performativity to consider the interplay between TAs’ socially-influenced enactments of self and how these are read and interpreted by students. Our findings suggest that TAs have markedly different experiences in the classroom based on their social location and that they engage in processes of impression management. Ultimately, our findings point toward a need to develop institutional initiatives that support TAs in navigating complex processes of embodiment, self-presentation, and disclosure in the classroom.