‘This is who we are and this is what we do’: teacher identity and teacher work in mid-twentieth century english educational discourse

Abstract

This article is concerned with exploring the development and consolidation of an English national identity, forcefully intertwined with a teacher identity, created as part of modernising tendencies (conservative and socially progressive) within the education system. Within this national identity, with its traditions and ‘race’/culture references, there is a constant, and often unremarked reference to the character and personality of the teacher. The article expresses a series of interlinked propositions. First, that emphasis on systems may have obscured the deeper waves of discursive influence on teacher identity as expression of national identity. Secondly, that this teacher identity was formed around notions of the public school teacher and was circulated and re-formed constantly in the middle decades of this century Finally, that this discursive influence was used to morally construct/‘civilise’ the teacher as a site of Englishness and the nation.