Factors Affecting the Development of a Teacher's Professional Identity: A Narrative-Research of a Teacher's Life Events

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: The professional identity of teachers is affected by many factors and conditions inside and outside the educational environment. Teacher professional identity is a fundamental issue that encompasses the overall career advancement of teachers. Professional identity is a teachers' interpretive framework that is created through different interactions of teachers with different working conditions and their fields of work. Professional identity is considered to be a dynamic thing that develops over time, which is why many factors affect the development of teachers' professional identity. Identifying these factors and paying attention to them will improve the efficiency of teachers. The present study aimed to identify the factors affecting the growth of a teacher's professional identity. Methodology: The method of this research is based on studies conducted by a narrative-research method, which has been done with studying their autobiographies. According to the research method of the society and the research sample, the life stories of the narrator (researcher) are formed. Data collection tools in this study are researcher’s narratives from his/her life, education and working life, which are based on the principles of narrative research by Clandin and Conley (2000). These principles are based on the focus of narrative on three elements of time, place and interaction, and through this, the life story of the storyteller is re-told. In this approach, researchers collect descriptions of events or happenings and present them as a story using a plot. To evaluate the validity and reliability of the findings, two methods of triangulation and group-evaluating have been used. Findings: The study of the course of narratives showed that the formation of the teacher's professional identity from the following stages: individual negativity, zigzag, social negativity and affirmativeness. Also, factors affecting the development of teacher professional identity were organized in the following four dimensions: Individual and family (including components of education, personality, life events, family atmosphere, beliefs and interactions), factors related to the educational life (including components of interactions, behavioral, contextual, formal curriculum and unknown curriculum), factors related to the employment life (behavioral-managerial, contextual, supervisory and educational components) and socio-political dimension (including social and political components). Conclusion: The formation of professional identity is a complex and long process that is full of challenges and problems. This process takes place in a specific cultural context and is influenced by personal, social, cultural, political, professional and global factors.