Professional Role Identity Research Articles

The nanny in the schoolhouse: the role of femme-Caribbean identity in attaining success in urban science classrooms

A growing body of teacher identity-based research has begun to embrace that the development of self-understanding about being a teacher is critical to learning how to teach. Construction of a professional teacher identity requires much more beyond mere content, skills and a foundational pedagogy. It also includes an intersection of the personal and professional self, which gives way to the emergence of multiple identities in the classroom. An educator’s gender, nationality, language and interests among other tenets all permeate the classroom field and coexist alongside the professional role identity. This paper aims to use narrative as a way to discuss how science educators can mediate holding several identities in the classroom in order to create an environment characterized by successful teaching and learning. Drawing from an array of sociocultural theoretical perspectives, complementary constructs of identity by Jonathan Turner (Face to face: toward a sociological theory of interpersonal behavior. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2002) and Amartya Sen (Identity and violence: the illusion of destiny. W. W. Norton, New York, 2006), George Lakoff’s (Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980) work on metonymy, and David Bloome’s (2005) theorization of the power of caring relationships, I explore the ways in which my Black female Caribbean identity has transformed the science classroom field and created positive resonance for some of my privileged White students who have Caribbean caretakers at home. To begin, I unpack how Afro-Caribbean immigration to urban centers in the United States continues to produce childcare occupational opportunities in places like New York City. Being a first generation Trinidadian immigrant, my many identities have structured my science teaching praxis and consequently transformed the way my students learn science. A significant part of this paper is a reflexive account of experiences (primarily dialogue) with science students situated both within and outside the science classroom. Conversations with students who were raised through the hired help of Caribbean nannies have revealed that there is a strong resemblance to the way they perceive their caretakers as they do me—their instructor. These conversations serve as a backdrop to illuminate the dynamic nature of identity construction and its relationship to the development of ongoing dialogue. The hope is that this autoethnographic work illustrates the salience of student lifeworlds in affording opportunities for success in the science classroom. Additionally, this research seeks to illustrate how understanding the unconscious ‘backgrounding’ and ‘foregrounding’ of certain identities in the classroom can improve one’s praxis in the urban science classroom and possibly increase student success in science. It is also hoped that this story reiterates the importance of using stories for purposes of scholarship, for moving towards better understandings of the social situations we are concerned to investigate as researchers and for better communication of those understandings.

Professional Role Identity Reconstruction: The interplay of framing and agency

This paper contributes to professional role identity reconstruction theory with the study of professional identity role reconstruction work undertaken by professionals in a context of forced instit...

Using Metaphor to Explore the Professional Role Identities of Higher Education English Language Instructors

While the teacher professional role identity of pre-service English Language teachers has gained popularity recently, that of practicing teachers is less well-researched. This study aims to reveal how a group of Turkish university English Language instructors (n=35) perceived their professional role identities. To this aim, the participants were asked to describe how they saw their roles as English teachers using a metaphor of their own choice. Content analysis of the metaphors revealed 9 overall themes. The most common theme was'guide’; followed by’flexible’,’nurturer’,’frustrated’, and’authority’; then’entertainer’ and’challenger’; and finally’novice’ and’other’.

Maintaining equilibrium in professional role identity: a grounded theory study of health visitors’ perceptions of their changing professional practice context

This article reports the study of a group of United Kingdom health visitors' interactions with their changing practice context, focusing on role identity and influences on its stability. United Kingdom policies have urged health visitors to refocus their role as key public health nurses. Reduced role identity clarity precipitated the emergence of different models of health visiting public health work. An inconsistent role standard can lead to role identity fragmentation and conflict across a group. It may precipitate individual role crisis, affecting optimum role performance. Seventeen health visitors in two United Kingdom community healthcare organizations participated in a grounded theory study, incorporating constant comparative analysis. Direct observations and individual interviews were undertaken between 2002 and 2008. Four interlinked categories emerged: professional role identity (core category); professional role in action; interprofessional working; and local micro-systems for practice; each influencing participants' sense of identity and self-worth. The Role Identity Equilibrium Process explains interactive processes occurring at different levels of participants' practice. Re-establishing equilibrium and consistency in health visiting identity is a priority. This study's findings have significance for other nurses and health professionals working in complex systems, affected by role change and challenges to role identity.

A Social Purpose Model for Nursing

The very current international debate regarding the construction of professional role-identity in nursing involves analysis of context, competency, reflection, and theory. What most of the literature shows is that nursing continues to struggle with inherited moral and behaviorist constructs in which essential is in opposition to essentialist caring values and remains part of a convoluted argument. Each of these two types of caring either figure or pre-figure in the "future of nursing," which, in the 21st century is contained within the market economy of healthcare reforms and international change. Therefore, how nursing's past is mapped is germane to any current or future understanding of nursing in a multidisciplinary workforce. The paper takes a theoretical position employing a nursing model, newly constructed by the author, to examine 21st century nursing. The model seeks to gain an informed knowledge of practice to develop a means of evaluating nursing within its social context. The model is called a social purpose model. This article provides a historical mapping of the concept of new nursing from when it was utilized in another context nearly 18 years ago to now in the United Kingdom. This article includes a critical discussion of nursing's purposeful future to make the discussion more meaningful from an international perspective. Cartographically linking the past to the present is important, but if there is opportunity to define and identify the profession for a purposeful future, appropriate tools are needed to do so. This article offers a social purpose model in which a subjective, objective, and contextual ideal of what nursing is today can be explored critically and applied both to the student and mentor's practice arena. To extend a definition of nursing for pragmatic purposes, nursing needs to be defined in relation to the social context within which it is practiced. Theory and experiential evaluation must inform action as a working adjunct to governmental documentation, taking 21st century nursing from the desktop to the bedside.

From ‘Ivory Tower Traditionalists’ to ‘Entrepreneurial Scientists’? Academic Scientists in Fuzzy University-Industry Boundaries

Growing intensity of university-industry ties has generated an intense debate about the changing norms and practices of academic scientific work. This study challenges the protagonists’ views on the emergence of a dominant market ethos in academic science and growing influence of the ‘new school’ entrepreneurial scientists. It argues that academic scientists are active agents shaping the relationships between science and business, and shows continued diversity in their work orientations. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and the notion of ‘boundary work’, the study examines how scientists seek to protect and negotiate their positions, and also make sense of their professional role identities. It identifies four different orientations, the ‘traditional’ and ‘entrepreneurial’, with two hybrid types in between. The hybrids are the dominant category and are particularly adept at exploiting the ambiguities of ‘boundary work’ between academia and industry. The study is based on 36 interviews and a survey sample of 734 academic scientists from five UK research universities.

Collaborative IT offshoring relationships and professional role identities: Reflections from a field study

While IT offshoring has generated heated debates both in scholarly circles and in the popular press, its impact on professional role identities and career experiences of situated individuals in both onshore and offshore locations has received much less attention. In this paper, we present a qualitative case study featuring a large global German technology firm and examine the multiple ways in which working within a collaborative offshoring arrangement has influenced the reconfiguration of German and Indian respondents' professional role identities. In light of these changes, the findings also highlight how emerging offshoring practices led to an ongoing reassessment of our respondents' career aspirations and strategies. In particular, our study draws attention to the often complex means deployed by individuals working in an offshoring environment to further their career prospects. From a practitioner perspective, we suggest several steps managers can take to help employees overcome the anxiety and insecurities, which inevitably seem to accompany the offshoring phenomenon.

The role of explanatory models and professional factors in Singaporean clergy referral intentions to mental health professionals

Little has been done to consider how practitioners from different mental health sectors relate to each other, with even fewer studies examining this relationship through referral practices. Among religiously affiliated populations, clergy continue to be an important source of mental health care although they are unlikely to make referrals to mental health professionals. This study examines the case of clergy referral intentions to mental health professionals for several scenarios of mental health concern in Singapore and attempts to identify possible barriers to such referrals. Using a self-administered, mailed survey to a representative sample of clergy, it was found that explanatory models associated with mental disorder as well as professional role identity, professional competence and professional networks were important in predicting referral intentions. Several education-related variables as well as religious conservatism were also useful in the statistical analysis.

Exploring the professional role identities of experienced ESL teachers through reflective practice

Abstract Over their careers teachers tacitly construct and reconstruct a conceptual sense of who they are (their self-image) and what they do (their professional role identity). Teacher role identity includes teacher beliefs, values, and emotions about many aspects of teaching and being a teacher. Reflecting on teacher role identity allows language educators a useful lens into the “who” of teaching and how teachers construct and reconstruct their views of their roles as language teachers and themselves in relation to their peers and their context. This paper reports on the professional role identity of three experienced ESL College teachers in Canada as communicated in regular group meetings. A total of 16 main role identities were identified and divided into three major role identity clusters of teacher as manager, teacher as professional, and teacher as ‘acculturator’, the last of which may be somewhat unique to ESL teachers.

The role of professional identity in patterns of use of multiple‐choice assessment tools

This article uses the notion of professional identity within the framework of actor network theory to understand didactic practices within three faculties in an institution of higher education. The study is based on a series of interviews with lecturers in each faculty and diaries of their didactic practices. The article focuses on the use of a multiple‐choice assessment tool available on a virtual learning environment and on the lecturers' attitudes towards it. The data suggest that the prevalent epistemic culture in a faculty's community of practice plays a significant role in the choices made by lecturers as far as their actual use of the tool is concerned. The lecturers' professional identity is also a substantial element in shaping their attitude towards the tool.

From ‘Ivory Tower Traditionalists’ to ‘Entrepreneurial Scientists’?

Growing intensity of university—industry ties has generated an intense debate about the changing norms and practices of academic scientific work. This study challenges the protagonists’ views on the emergence of a dominant market ethos in academic science and growing influence of the ‘new school’ entrepreneurial scientists. It argues that academic scientists are active agents seeking to shape the relationships between science and business, and shows continued diversity in their work orientations. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and the notion of ‘boundary work’, the study examines how scientists seek to protect and negotiate their positions, and also make sense of their professional role identities. It identifies four different orientations: the ‘traditional’ and ‘entrepreneurial’, with two hybrid types in between. The hybrids are the dominant category and are particularly adept at exploiting the ambiguities of ‘boundary work’ between academia and industry. The study is based on 36 interviews and a survey sample of 734 academic scientists from five UK research universities.

Florence Nightingale Endures: Legitimizing a New Professional Role Identity

abstractWe examined the discursive processes through which a new professional role identity for registered nurses was legitimized by analysing introductory textbooks over time. We theorize five ways of rhetorically legitimizing a new professional role identity: naturalizing the past, normalizing new meanings, altering identity referents, connecting with the institutional environment, and referencing authority. In contrast to previous research focused on legitimizing new practices, we contribute to the institutional literature by showing that legitimizing a professional role identity requires the incremental development of new arguments where the past is not delegitimized. Our findings also indicate that instead of a progression from moral and pragmatic legitimacy to cognitive legitimacy, legitimizing a new role identity may focus only on moral legitimacy. Finally, our study highlights the importance of interactions between the professional task environment and the wider institutional environment as part of the process of legitimizing a professional role identity.

Shrinking social space in the doctor–modern patient relationship: A review of forces for, and implications of, homologisation

Objective Forces for modernisation appear to have led to role convergence and reduced social distances between doctors and modern patients. This review aims to document and understand this process in theory and practice, and to consider the implications for modern patients in particular but also non-modern patients and doctors. Method Narrative review of published and grey literature identified from sources including electronic databases, the Internet and reference lists of retrieved works. Results Forces for role convergence between doctors and modern patients include consumerism and increased patient literacy; socio-technological changes; values convergence; increased licence for doctors to use their emotions in patient care; and structural changes in the social organisation of health care. As a result, modern patients appear to have gained more in health care than they have lost and more than have the non-modern (or less modern) patients. Doctors have lost authority and autonomy in patient care. Conclusion The net impulse toward role convergence is, on balance, a positive development. The differential uptake of modernisation by patients has increased health inequalities between modern and non-modern patients. The need of doctors to accommodate these changes has contributed to a form of reprofessonalisation. Practice implications A key challenge is to make available the benefits of modernisation, for example through patient education, to as many patients as possible while minimising the risk of harm. It is important therefore to elucidate and be responsive to patient preferences for modernisation, for example by enlisting the support of the modern patients in overcoming barriers to the modernisation of non-modern patients. There is also a need to support doctors as they redefine their own professional role identity.

The development of preservice elementary teachers' curricular role identity for science teaching

AbstractCurriculum materials are a crucial tool with which teachers engage in teaching practice. For preservice teachers to learn to use science curriculum materials in productive ways, they must develop a conception of themselves as elementary teachers in which the use of science curriculum materials is a valued dimension of science‐teaching practice. We define those dimensions of teachers' professional role identities concerned with the use of curriculum materials as curricular role identity. This mixed‐methods study examines preservice elementary teachers' development of curricular role identity for science teaching through their use of science curriculum materials. Forty‐seven preservice elementary teachers in two sections of an elementary science methods course were studied over the course of one semester. Data sources include survey results from preservice teachers in both course sections as well as interviews, observations, and course artifacts from preservice teachers studied in‐depth. Results suggest preservice teachers articulate important differences between their own and more experienced elementary teachers' curricular role identity for science teaching and make progress toward appropriating the latter. Supporting them to do so requires emphasizing interactions with science curriculum materials as part of teacher education and providing classroom‐based experiences through which they can put their developing curricular role identities into action. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 92:909–940, 2008

Contextualizing Not-Knowing: Terminology and the Role of Professional Identity

SUMMARY This chapter provides a context for the concept of not-knowing, including a discussion of how the concept was framed. The experience of not-knowing in professional youth work is framed in relationship to other concepts explored by the social work and therapeutic literature (including vicarious trauma, helplessness, secondary trauma, and burnout), as well as those offered by the limited youth work and nursing literature discussing similar concepts (disruption and hurt, suffering, commitment in spite of conflict, and the struggle to go along when you do not believe). The standing of youth work in the professions and its own struggles to professionalize are explored, with attention to how not-knowing affects and is affected by these efforts.

Building Theoretical and Empirical Bridges Across Levels: Multilevel Research in Management

Most management problems involve multilevel phenomena, yet most management research uses a single level of analysis. A micro or a macro lens alone yields incomplete understanding at either level. Multilevel research addresses the levels of theory, measurement, and analysis required to fully examine research questions. This forum presents multilevel research on bribery, national identity, team boundary spanning, professional role identity, organizational citizenship, interorganizational exchanges, and divestitures. To enrich the impact of future management research, we recommend (1) applying multilevel designs to existing models (2) considering bottom-up effects, (3) collaborating across disciplines on multidisciplinary topics, and (4) addressing major real-world problems via multilevel approaches.

Interlevel Influences on the Reconstruction of Professional Role Identity

Research on roles and identities generally represents a micro perspective that does not account for the reconstruction of professional role identity, owing to insufficient attention to institutiona...

Student evaluations of a year-long mentorship program: A quality improvement initiative

Mentoring is an important teaching-learning process in undergraduate nursing curricula. There are relatively few studies specifically evaluating nursing students' perceptions of mentorship. In the period 1999-2002, 39 students were mentored during a year-long program. This descriptive, exploratory study used a quality improvement framework informed by the Deming cycle of Plan, Do, Check and Act [Deming, W.E., 1982. Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge] to evaluate the mentorship program from the students' perspective. Information was gathered through surveys, focus group discussions and interviews and analyzed to identify themes of responses. Identified themes were 'The doing of nursing', 'The thinking of nursing' and 'Being a nurse'. The study confirmed the value of mentorship in undergraduate nursing and highlighted the importance of skill competence as a basis for professional role identity by graduating students. The benefits of mentorship were derived from a long term, supportive relationship with the same registered nurse who was committed to the student's professional development.

Salience of self-identity roles in persons with dementia: Differences in perceptions among elderly persons, family members and caregivers

In this study, we explored perceptions of the salience of self-identity in persons suffering from dementia as perceived by the participants themselves, by family, and by staff caregivers. Four types of role-identity were explored: professional, family role, hobbies/leisure activities, and personal attributes. Participants were 104 persons with dementia, 48 of whom attended six adult day care centers while 56 resided in two nursing homes in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Participants, relatives, and staff members were interviewed to obtain information about past and present self-identity roles of participants and attitudes toward these roles. Findings demonstrate that the importance of role identities decreases over time and with the progression of dementia. The family role was found to be the most important and salient role identity according to all the informant groups. The professional role was the one that showed the steepest decline in importance from past to present. Gender differences were detected for the importance of professional role identity. Participants rated their roles in the past as less important and those in the present as more important compared to family members. Family members reported greater decline in the importance of role identities for those participants with greater cognitive impairment. Participants with moderate cognitive impairment reported greater decline in the importance of role identities than did the participants with severe cognitive impairment. Understanding the past and present self-identities of persons with diminished cognitive abilities is crucial in the effort to provide individualized care and enhance participant experiences.

Jobzufriedenheit und Burn-out bei Professionellen der gemeindepsychiatrischen Versorgung in Österreich

The aim of this study was to explore job satisfaction, professional role and burnout among community mental health staff in Austria. The Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, the GHQ-12, the Maslach Burnout Inventory and a questionnaire exploring staff's professional role and team identity were administered to 195 community-based mental health professionals in two Austrian regions. Staff's job perception was assessed in open questions. Predictors of burnout scores were identified in multivariate analyses. While the mental health professionals had elevated scores on the GHQ-12, their levels on the three burnout subscales were low. Social workers and psychologists showed the lowest job satisfaction, social workers also had low role identity scores. Being in the current job for a short time and disposing of psychosocial skills were predictors of high job satisfaction. High burnout scores were predicted by the lack of basic psychosocial competence and a lack of general knowledge in mental health care. The effect of caseload on psychological well-being was positive as well as negative. Even if the mental health professionals in our study show high levels of general stress, they seem to have less emotional problems resulting from extensively dealing with troubled individuals. Improving basic psychosocial competence and general expertise in mental health care might have a protective effect against developing a burnout syndrome.