Exploring Hebrew Teachers’ Professional Identity in Jewish Day Schools in North America

This thesis focuses on multilingual mathematics teachers in multilingualmathematics classrooms through the lens of professional identity. The aimis to increase the knowledge about the formation and development ofmultilingual mathematics teachers’ professional identities in relation tomultilingual mathematics teaching. A case study approach is adopted, inwhich Neda, a multilingual primary school mathematics teacher, and Aza,a multilingual mathematics teacher at the lower secondary level in Sweden,have been followed over two academic years. The Patterns of Participation (PoP) framework is used as a conceptual andanalytical framework. As a conceptual framework, it enables theinterpretation of teachers’ professional identities through their shiftingexperiences of being, becoming, and belonging as multilingualmathematics teachers in multilingual schools and classroom interactions.Analytically, PoP enables the construction of several practices and figuredworlds relevant to teachers’ identities, as well as the illustration andconnection of practices and figured worlds significant for teachers inmultilingual classroom interactions. The findings reveal that multiple, occasionally theoretically conflictingpractices and figured worlds are relevant for the teachers in relation tomultilingual mathematics teaching. A multilingual approach to teaching,as well as a language-focused approach to mathematical concepts andcommunication, is emphasised. However, the use of students’ mothertongue is less visible during classroom interactions. Teachers balancebetween the use of students’ mother tongue and the language ofinstruction, especially during interactions with newly arrived mathematicsstudents. Teachers’ identity trajectories over two academic years of school change,though, highlight the teachers’ shifting experiences of being a multilingualmathematics teacher more than being a multilingual mathematics teacher.The cases make visible that teachers being or becoming recognised asqualified and successful mathematics teachers shift positively when theirsense of belonging is aligned within the school and among colleagues.Experiences of being, becoming and belonging as a multilingualmathematics teacher in the school are linked to the teachers’ professionaland educational language-related and multilingual experiences in the past. In conclusion, being a multilingual mathematics teacher is entangled inteachers’ professional experiences and educational realities, whichforeground the official language of instruction for multilingualmathematics teaching. However, the identity development of multilingualmathematics teachers in schools can be enhanced by embracing theirexperiences and expertise as both multilingual and mathematics educators.

Drawing on Vygotskian sociocultural theory, particularly genetic method and activity theory, and using a qualitative case study design, the present study explored the professional experiences of three preservice English as an additional language (EAL) teachers in secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. Specifically, it sought to understand the preservice teachers as learners of EAL teaching, the context of the EAL professional experiences, and the preservice teachers’ activity of learning to teach EAL in relation to personal and contextual factors. The study was conducted at Greystone University and its three partnership secondary schools in Victoria, including Redwood Secondary College, Greenfern Secondary College and Bluerock Grammar School. Research participants included three preservice teachers of the Graduate Diploma of Education program at Greystone, three mentor teachers working at the partnership schools, and two academics working at the university. Data were collected through interviews, stimulated recalls, the preservice teachers’ self-reflections, and analysis of documents, lesson plans, audio-recorded lessons, and teaching materials. Qualitative content analysis was conducted with the support of NVivo10 software. A joint activity system of preservice EAL teaching and mentoring was constructed for each preservice teacher/mentor teacher pair based on the results of qualitative content analysis, and this served as a unit of analysis. The study found that the preservice teachers brought a range of personal factors to the professional experiences and these developed in interaction with various contextual factors inherent in the practicum settings in shaping their professional experiences. Major personal factors included prior beliefs, educational experience, teaching experience, non-native English speaking (NNES) background, professional identity, emotions, and other personal factors. Influential contextual factors included policies, curriculum, rules, tools, division of labour, interactions with mentor teachers, learners, and other community members. Data analysis also shows instances of professional development as a result of the interaction between the persons of the preservice teachers as learners of teaching, the context of learning to teach, and the activity of learning to teach. All the three preservice teachers developed their professional identity as an important part of their professional socialisation process. Each participant also demonstrated areas of developing EAL teaching expertise through appropriation of mediating tools. The findings support the view that contextual and personal factors are crucial for understanding preservice teachers’ professional learning during the school-based professional experience and extend the literature on the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) professional experience by providing comprehensive and systematic insights into preservice school-based EAL teaching. Together with theoretical and research contributions, the study has a number of implications for EAL teacher education practices in terms of developing the knowledge base for EAL teaching and an effective model of professional experience for EAL preservice teachers.

While the Ontario school curriculum recognises that all Ontario teachers across disciplines are responsible for supporting English language learners, traditional monolingual teacher education programmes are critiqued for inadequately preparing them to provide bi/multilingual students with comprehensive language and literacy education. Grounded in translanguaging and transpositioning theory, this study advocates for equity-based praxis in multilingual classrooms by examining how teacher identity mediates inclusive pedagogy. It explores how the creation of digital identity texts serves as a reflexive tool, enabling language teachers to critically reflect on and reconstruct their professional and linguistic identities. Using narrative inquiry and collaborative autoethnography, it focuses on three language educators’ experiences of creating multilingual and multimodal identity texts and reflecting on their evolving personal and professional identities. Findings demonstrate that the process of creating identity texts empowered participants to affirm their linguistic and cultural heritage, challenge hierarchical language ideologies, and reposition themselves across intersecting roles. Situated in translanguaging spaces, teachers engaged in transpositioning to fluidly shift their roles as educators, individuals, and community members. It underscores the potential of identity texts as a transformative pedagogy that celebrates diverse identities and promote critical language awareness, and thus, potentially support social justice in education.

The scholarship on teacher leadership has witnessed significant growth over the past two decades, yielding a plethora of research highlighting this phenomenon’s complexities. However, a notable gap persists in the extant literature, namely, the nexus between teacher identity, the multifaceted selves of educators, and teacher leadership praxis. This study seeks to address this knowledge gap by exploring how the personal and professional lived experiences of South African expatriate teachers inform their teacher leadership practices in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country schools. This study used a qualitative research design to use narrative inquiry as its methodological framework. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to select six South African expatriate teachers from GCC countries. Narrative vignettes, constructed from field texts generated through narrative interviews and photo-elicitation, were used to illustrate how personal and professional identities shape teacher leadership praxis. The findings of this study reveal that particular personal identities, such as being a compassionate mother, contribute to the development of nurturing teacher leadership practices. Conversely, professional identities, such as being a self-directed teacher-learner, influence teacher leadership practices about teacher development. This research underscores the significance of acknowledging and mobilising expatriate teacher leaders’ personal and professional experiences as assets to enhance teaching and learning.

The Nurse Leader’s Role:: A Conduit for Professional Identity Formation and Sustainability

Purpose This study aims to critically explore how professional identities of immigrant non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers in Australia evolve over time and how these processes can be conceptualised through Hybrid Relational Onto-Epistemology (HROE). The paper seeks to decentre anthropocentric knowledge paradigms in qualitative research by incorporating Eastern and Western epistemologies within a processual and relational approach. By examining how professional identity is shaped by lived experiences, relationality and spatial-temporal entanglements, the study contributes to advancing qualitative methodologies that embrace fluidity, multiplicity and ethical co-emergence in qualitative research. Design/methodology/approach This article introduces HROE, an evolving qualitative research methodology that interweaves four vectors: temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. HROE reconfigures qualitative inquiry by integrating insights from an extensive body of literature and a long-term empirical study employing hermeneutic phenomenology and narrative inquiry. It examines how immigrant NNES teachers in Australia shape their professional identities through lived experiences over time. HROE responds to the call to decentre anthropocentrism by running Eastern onto-epistemologies—Jñana Vidya, Marifat, Mohism and Zhishí Lilùn—and Western philosophies of becoming and differentiation through the four vectors. This approach produces a decentred, processual understanding of knowledge and identity formation, offering a methodological alternative to Western-centric, human-centered paradigms. HROE demonstrates how these concepts unfold iteratively through the four vectors, generating relational creativity, iterative self-overcoming and ethical co-emergence as emergent epistemic forces. By applying HROE to narrative data, this paper illustrates how NNES teachers co-construct professional identity as an ongoing, co-emergent process, shaped by the dynamic interplay of temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. It foregrounds how diverse lived experiences continuously reshape ethically attuned professional development, advancing a transversal and embedded methodological orientation that embraces becoming as fluid and differentiation as relationally situated. In doing so, HROE fosters practical and philosophical tools to reimagine relational ontologies in qualitative research, where knowing and being unfold as intertwined, rather than separate, domains. Findings Findings reveal that NNES teachers' professional identities are co-constructed through processual and iterative engagements with temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. The study highlights how diverse onto-epistemic methods elucidate the evolving nature of professional becoming, shaped by affective and institutional entanglements. Teacher professionals actively negotiate linguistic hierarchies, cultural expectations and policy structures while constructing cosmopolitan English teaching identities. The application of HROE demonstrates that professional identity formation is not linear but an emergent, co-constitutive process that unfolds across multiple, intersecting spaces—both material and digital—challenging static models of teacher development. Research limitations/implications While this study advances HROE as a methodological alternative for qualitative inquiry, its findings are contextually situated within the experiences of NNES teaching professionals in Australia. Future research should apply HROE across diverse professional contexts to explore its broader applicability. Additionally, methodological engagement with Indigenous and African epistemologies could further enhance its decolonial and transversal potential. The study invites qualitative researchers to rethink knowledge production beyond Western paradigms, advocating for ethically engaged, relational and processual approaches in professional identity research. Practical implications This research provides educators, policymakers and teacher educators with insights into how NNES teachers construct and negotiate their professional identities within evolving educational milieus. The study underscores the importance of mentorship, intercultural pedagogies and professional networks in fostering inclusive and cosmopolitan professional identities. By applying HROE, teacher education programs can shift from standardised, competency-based models to more fluid, relational and transformative approaches that recognise the affective, embodied and spatial-temporal dimensions of professional development. Social implications By challenging linguistic hierarchies and anthropocentric research paradigms, this study contributes to broader discussions on social justice and equity in education. It highlights the systemic barriers that NNES teachers face and how relational, embodied and affective engagements can foster more inclusive educational spaces. The research underscores the need for policies that value multilingual and transnational expertise in teacher recruitment and professional development. HROE offers a methodological lens for reimagining knowledge production, emphasising ethical co-emergence, relational creativity and diverse ways of knowing in educational research. Originality/value This study introduces and operationalizes HROE as a novel methodological approach for qualitative research. By integrating Eastern and Western epistemologies, it decentres anthropocentric paradigms and provides a relational, processual alternative to dominant research methodologies. The study contributes empirical and theoretical insights into how NNES teachers construct professional identities through lived experiences. It advances qualitative methodologies that foreground relationality, temporality, spatiality and embodied materiality—offering a valuable orientation for researchers seeking to move beyond static, Western-centric paradigms in educational and professional identity research.

This study investigated the enactment of professional agency in an emotionally troubled work context emerging from a conflicted relationship between the professional and the work organization. Narrative interviews with Finnish educators were utilized. The findings indicate that the enactment of agency was in part framed by the educators’ rational interpretations of the relationship between themselves and their employer, plus their work history and future prospects. However, it was simultaneously embedded with contradictory emotions, such as a sense of being undervalued, fear, and a sense of empowerment. Within this framework, multifaceted professional agency was enacted particularly via leaving the organization. This was also a means of upholding one’s professional identity and resisting the organization’s work practices. The paper contributes to the theorizing of professional agency, particularly regarding its emotional dimension, and elaborates the significance of an emotional relationship between professionals and their organizations.
 Keywords: career, educators, emotions, meaningful work, narrative research, professional agency, professional identity

BackgroundTo become a good doctor, developing a professional identity is as important as having the right knowledge and skills. Great attention has been given to professional identity in medical school because it plays an important role in the transition from student to doctor. Nonetheless, the necessity of acquiring a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill during medical school training does not create sufficient opportunities for students to develop their professional identities. Thus, this paper pays careful attention to how students’ learning experiences in medical school affect this development. The research questions are as follows. 1) How do medical students’ perceptions of doctors change or strengthen after entering medical school in the process of professional identity development? 2) What kinds of knowledge have medical students accumulated while attending medical school? How do their learning experiences affect professional identity development? 3) What is a doctor’s role and the career’s meaning to medical students, and what understanding does this awareness bring to their learning experiences and lives as future doctors?MethodsIn-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Korean students in their fourth year of medical school; all had more than one year of experience in clinical settings. The students’ learning experiences and professional identity development were used to analyze the data using inductive thematic analysis.ResultsWhen students first entered medical school, they perceived their identities as “given to” them by society. However, various learning experiences during the medical school years affected them, causing them to think about becoming a doctor according to their own perceptions and the meaning of becoming a doctor in the profession. Although an isolated medical community and a competitive student culture hindered them from searching for their professional identities, informal learning experiences, including active interaction with patients, senior doctors, and others outside the medical community, enabled them to develop their professional identities. The medical students experienced a conflict between individual and professional values as they considered what kind of doctor they would be in the future.ConclusionsThe findings noted in this study extend the understanding of professional identity and informal learning experiences in medical school.

Employing ‘identity’ as an analytical lens, this study examined a group of novice school counselling teachers’ (SCTs) professional identities in the Chinese context. Informed by a multiple, integrated theoretical perspective focusing on the cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions of teacher identities, the findings reveal five types of metaphors (i.e. cognitive, social, cognitive-emotional, social-emotional and cognitive-social-emotional) that reflect the novice SCTs’ most prominent identities in their embedded institutional and social contexts. The study contributes to our understanding of SCTs’ professional experiences and identity construction mediated by a range of personal (e.g. limited professional competence) and contextual factors (e.g. a lack of school support and social bias against psychological counselling). It also provides useful implications on how to promote and sustain new teachers’ continuing identity development in complex school settings.

Due to the immense impact of teachers’ professional identity on their teaching effectiveness, multitudes of studies have now examined this multifaceted construct and its determinants. However, due to excessive focus on the personal determinants of teacher identity, whether or not this construct can be affected by contextual factors has remained elusive. To narrow this lacuna and unravel the contextual determinants of teacher professional identity, the current study strived to divulge the role of two contextual factors, namely, school climate and administrator leadership behavior, in shaping the professional identity of Chinese English as foreign language teachers. To this end, with the aid of the convenient sampling technique, 375 English as foreign language teachers were invited to partake in the present research. The needed data were gleaned via three online self‐scoring questionnaires and were analyzed via SPSS (v. 26) and AMOS (v. 29). Results obtained from correlation tests indicated a strong, linear relationship between school climate and teacher professional identity, as well as a moderate, linear association between leadership behavior and teacher professional identity. Furthermore, the findings of regression analyses identified that school climate and administrator leadership behavior are two important determinants of professional identity among Chinese English as foreign language teachers. In fact, as the regression outcomes revealed, these two contextual variables serve a key role in constructing or reconstructing the professional identity of Chinese English as foreign language teachers. The findings of this inquiry can deepen our comprehension of the influence of contextual factors on the formation of teachers’ professional identity.

In this paper, we present the results of a research programme we developed to investigate the professional identity of preschool education teachers in Greece. Our aim was to investigate parameters affecting not only the creation but also the reform of professional identity and to highlight potential differences in terms of professional identity. Contemporary approaches to professional identity – developed since the 80s – raise issues related primarily to participatory processes, reflection, autonomy and emancipation. Teachers’ professional identity is gradually developed through an ongoing process of three interrelated and complementary steps: (a) pre-service teacher education, (b) vocational integration and (c) exercise of professional duties and in-service training. We interviewed 20 teachers on their professional identity. We chose two categories of teachers based on two criteria: (a) their studies, and (b) their professional experience in the field. Tentative findings showed that professional experience was more important than studies in the construction of their professional identity. Professional identity also relates to both their professional experience and the dominant beliefs about early childhood education.

Introduction. Professional identity being developed in the process of professional education and professional competency active development is the result of the conscious recognition of the self as having the identity with a chosen profession and professional community specific to it. Related to the professional environment adaptation and professional experience structuring as well as profession outlook prediction etc., it makes prospective specialists feel confident about their self-effectiveness in profession being aware of the competency indicators and measures. The importance of Maritime English communicative competency for future seafarers, officially recognized by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as one of the major factors in safe navigation, makes their professional identity communicative component urgent, considering its transformative effect on their speech habits as is also communication culture. Purpose. To analyze the mutual relationship problem of future seafarers’ professional identity and their Maritime English communicative competency development. Methods. Reviewing scientific literature relevant to prospective seafarers’ professional identity, professional competency and Maritime English communicative competency development. Interconnection and interdependence determination between the specified processes. Results. The research findings on the problem of mutual relationship between the prospective seafarers’ professional identification and Maritime English communicative competency development are presented. Determinants of the specified processes peculiarities are investigated. The stages of the professional identity development associated with the educational process continuum in the maritime higher education institutions in general, and the English language teaching specifics in particular are analyzed. Individual deterministic statuses and levels of professional identity are examined, as well as the specific nature of their development in future seafarers’ Maritime English communicative competency. Evolutionary changes in professional identity development are characterized through the prism of its communicative component and considered as actions on professional communicative identification directly affecting the future specialists’ communicative competency. Professional communicative identity is defined as the result of the self-identification of one’s communication skills and habits, abilities and knowledge as well as experience of effective English-language professional communication in compliance with communication traditions and standards. Conclusion. The prospective seafarers’ Maritime English communicative competency development by reference to the peculiarities of their professional identification couple positively on the two factors of future specialists’ professional growth.

In this study, we present the pilot implementation of the ReSearching Identity Podcast Project, an intervention targeting the professional identity development of students with and without marginalized identities in higher education. The objectives were to assess the intervention’s acceptability and feasibility, particularly focusing on its use of educational podcasting, and to explore preliminary effects on students’ professional identity, including identity centrality and the connectedness with social identities (i.e. cultural and gender identity). We conducted a mixed method pilot study with university students (N = 33; 88% female) in the Netherlands. Students completed online surveys before and after the pilot implementation, and students and their teacher participated in follow-up conversations. The results supported the acceptability and feasibility of the ReSearching Identity Podcast Project, with students and teachers appreciating the brevity of the intervention program, opportunities to learn about marginalized experiences of fellow students and professionals, and embeddedness in the curriculum. Also, students reported higher professional identity centrality and overall high connectedness of professional and other social identities after the intervention. We conclude by addressing the limitations, but also potential of the ReSearching Identity Podcast Project to address professional identity development with all students in higher education.

Over the last decade, using interviews to analyse identity construction has been gaining in popularity (de Fina 2003; Johnson 2006; Baynham 2011) and, given this interest, analysing identities has become a much debated issue that is being approached from various angles. Regarding interviews as interaction between the interviewee and interviewer, and stories in the interviews as emerging from interactional dynamics (de Fina 2009), this paper draws attention to the emergence of identity at different levels. First, identities emerge at the level of the interview narrative, which is ongoing talk as it evolves in real time and consists of reporting facts, giving opinions on, and explaining aspects of, various topics to the interviewer. Second, identities emerge in stories which are included in the ongoing talk. Stories refer to actions in the past, usually told in chronological order. In contrast to interview narratives which are initiated by the interviewer, stories in interviews are primarily instigated by the interviewees to further support their identity co-construction in the interview setting. The interview setting is thus the third level of identity construction in interviews. By applying the framework of identities occurring at different levels in interviews and Positioning Theory (Harré and van Langenhove 1999), this paper analyses the construction of professional gender identities in the workplace, the interplay between these identities, and the dependence of these constructions on the ‘interview as context’. The stories themselves reveal how, in the workplace, there may be a conflict between professional and gender identities. More specifically such stories make visible the way in which interviewees construct their professional identities in order to resist gender identities that are projected onto them.

Teacher identity is one of the key factors influencing the form and quality of educational processes. The aim of our literature review is an analysis of research on teachers' narrative identity in primary and secondary education. We used the Web of Science database and selected studies from 2010–2020 in English. The analysis shows that the area of teacher identity can be viewed from the points of personal and professional identity and their interplay. The data about teacher identity were collected mostly as narratives showing teachers' experience of their profession and their selves. Professional identity is investigated in terms of diversity in classroom discourse, curriculum, and professional development. Research on a teachers' personal identity focuses primarily on gender, parenting, sexual orientation, ethnicity, culture, political orientation, and national identity. The study illustrates an interplay of professional and personal identity.