Teaching Identity Research Articles

Interactions of Power and Social Pedagogical Recognition: An Analysis of Narratives of Pupils Who Use Alcohol and Drugs in an Upper Secondary School Context in Sweden

The aim of this study is to contribute new knowledge about interactions of power and social pedagogical recognition in narratives of students who use alcohol and drugs in an upper secondary school context. In this context, the student narratives create and re-create a series of images of varied treatment by professional actors (e.g., teachers, student coordinators, counsellors). The reproduced power interactions in narratives describing the practices of professional actors are significant for student learning, teaching, nurturing, inclusion, change, discipline, and identity creation. The social pedagogical recognition of the “other party” in the pupil–professional actor relationship is especially important for achieving the aims of including pupils who use alcohol and drugs in a learning context and enacting positive change through the creation and re-creation of social pedagogical identities (e.g., successful pupil identity) in the upper secondary school context.

Interculturalism, ethnicity, and multilingualism in upper secondary school: an analysis of social pedagogical identities during pedagogical work with newly arrived students in Sweden

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study is to attain new knowledge about interculturalism, ethnicity, and multilingualism in the upper secondary school context in conjunction with pedagogical work with students who are newly arrived in the country. The empirical material for the study was collected in the upper secondary context in Sweden and consists of documents, field notes, and qualitative interview. Analysis shows that a distance relationship is created and recreated in the interactive flow between the newly arrived students and the teachers' institution when ethnic social pedagogical monitoring and control are represented in writing by the institution (the upper secondary school) and verbally in the observed and recounted situations. Social pedagogical identities are produced and reproduced in the interactive dynamic, in which the newly arrived student is represented as a successful student, developing in the social pedagogical meaning. However, the newly arrived student also is represented as a humiliated, weary, excluded student who, through demonstration of moral dissolution, displays an ethnified victim student identity that is in opposition to the teachers and institution. This represented humiliation, weariness, and exclusion of the newly arrived student constructs and reconstructs the image of a disadvantaged student. The effect is likely a negative impact on the aims of the upper secondary school to include and integrate newly arrived students into the school community and society at large.

Transitioning Between Reform-Based Curricula: A Middle School Teacher’s Construction of a Science Teaching Identity

Research-based science curriculum has become a common means of supporting best practices in science teaching. In response to his middle school’s transition from one such commercially available science curriculum to another, a seventh-grade science teacher elected to make certain changes to the newly adopted curriculum in its first year of use. These curricular adaptations took place despite a district directive to pilot the curriculum without making any such changes. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand this teacher’s lived experience adapting the curriculum. The values that guided this teacher’s curricular decisions situated his lifeworld construction of a science teaching identity around an unremitting pedagogy that maintained his use of best practices. His identity construct further exposed certain self-understandings he held as a science teacher and understandings of his students as science learners. It was the intersection of these pedagogical values with those understandings of his students and himself that supported these curricular changes, providing the backdrop for his identity construct. Therefore, the construction of a science teaching identity, which relies on this intersection, offers deepened insight into teachers’ implementation of reform-based curriculum.

From a Monolingual Mind to a Multilingual Heart: An Autoethnography through Dominant Language Constellation

This article narrates and analyzes the author’s life experiences as a learner, teacher, and researcher of diverse languages across three contexts: mainland China, Hong Kong, and Norway. Deconstructing the influential episodes in the writer’s life trajectory, this autoethnography explores the author’s transformation from a monolingually-minded individual to a border-crossing, multilingually hearted scholar. The analysis is undertaken through the theoretical lens of language ideology and dominant language constellation (DLC) and epitomizes the profound influence of sociocultural structures on an individual’s identity search and development. Confronting the multilingual turn in education and echoing the call to centralize identity in language teaching, this self-study exemplifies autoethnography as an empowering method for an ideological shift from perceiving “language(s)-as-problem” to advocating “language(s)-as-resource.” The study also illustrates how the construct of DLC can be deployed as a tangible model of multilinguals’ ever-evolving linguistic identities.

The school in times of pandemic: a personal and professional perspective

ABSTRACT This article explores the intersectionalities of teaching, and the personal and professional identity of a Primary Education teacher who reflects what it meant to be a teacher during the pandemic, his experiences of teaching and learning, his relationships with the students, and his future perspectives. Using an autoethnographic approach, we draw on autobiographical narratives to delve into how teaching subjectivities are constructed to advance knowledge on a new way of being a teacher in the context of a health world crisis. In the telling, we attempt to engage the reader by communicating the subjectivity of different moments in a provocative, fragmented, physical, and emotional manner. The results suggest that the personal and professional identities shifted and evolved over the course of the pandemic. Also, the results reflect that narratives, such as those presented in this article, contribute to understanding the reconstruction of the teaching identity, in line with reconfigured relationships with students, his son, and a renewed commitment to make the school a pleasant, close place again, where friendship, tranquillity, and hugs are possible.

The Learning Design & Course Creation Workshop: Impact of a Professional Development Model for Training Designers and Creators of Online and Distance Learning

Higher education institutions are increasingly moving from traditional education approaches to incorporate online and distance learning (ODL) models, and this represents a substantial educational challenge for many educators. One way to support this challenge is by providing appropriate professional development (PD) for the design of ODL. Based on models from the Open University, UK this paper contends that PD for the design of ODL should align learning design frameworks with constructivist and student-focused pedagogies to manage the change to the professional teaching identities of participants that designing ODL represents. Robust professional identities are important for mitigating anxiety, embedding lasting change and leveraging the benefits of ODL for institutions and students. In this study, the rationale, model, and strategies of the Learning Design and Course Creation Workshop, based on current literature and participant feedback gathered immediately after instances of the PD was completed in China, are described. Evidence and examples of impact gathered from a second instrument, gathered after implementation, is also provided, and discussed in this context. The findings and conclusions will be of interest to those tasked with providing PD to support educators faced with rapid educational change, particularly as a response to the global demand for the design of ODL.

Identity grafting: Pedagogical identities underpinning teaching practices across five Chinese cities

ABSTRACT This paper examines teaching practices prevailing across five cities (Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei) for the underpinning pedagogical identities that inform practice (identity grafting). The study adopts innovative approaches via OECD teacher surveys to identify relationships between pedagogical identities (highly effective, outcome-centred, discipline-centred, diversity-centred and lowly effective) and teaching effectiveness in implementing pedagogically informed practice (instructional: learning-focused and assessments; classroom management: motivational, discipline and diversity). An original concept of identity grafting is employed to highlight which pedagogical identities best support teaching effectiveness (blending, integrating, reversing and repressing). Cluster analysis rigorously compares teachers’ pedagogical identities, teaching effectiveness and identity grafts in all five cities. Shanghai and Singapore have the largest segments of highly effective teachers within the local teacher population. However, Singapore likewise has the largest segment of lowly effective teachers among the cities, and Shanghai teachers are overall less likely to value diversity management than teachers in other cities. Across the cities, teachers who implement diverse practices by blending or integrating, and, to some extent, reversing pedagogical identities, have more effectiveness than those who repress their identities. The results provide globally significant insights into targeted professional development for different teacher segments within and between contexts.

Jeff Sundquist, Julie Artman, and Douglas R. Dechow. Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian : Using Acting Skills to Create a Dynamic Presence, Chicago, IL: ALA Editions, 2022. 130p. Paper, $52.00 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-3917-8).

Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian is a revised and expanded edition of The Craft of Librarian Instruction , published in 2016. Authors Sundquist (Dean of the Library at Monterey Peninsula College), Artman (librarian at Chapman University with experience as a theatre director, producer, acting coach, and actor), and Dechow (digital humanities and science librarian at Chapman University) state on page one of the prologue that they “hope to demonstrate how acting techniques can sharpen your instructional skills and establish your teaching identity, enliven your performance, and create an invigorating (and stress-free) learning experience for your students.” They maintain that the book is “intended for newly hired instruction librarians, librarians with little or no teaching experience, those dealing with shyness or stage fright, as well as more experienced librarians in need of a refreshed perspective” (p. viii).

VOZES DISCENTES DO CURSO DE LICENCIATURA EM QUÍMICA DA UFRGS: UMA ANÁLISE SOBRE A PERSPECTIVA CURRICULAR

THE STUDENT VOICES OF THE CHEMISTRY DEGREE COURSE AT UFRGS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CURRICULAR PERSPECTIVE. The reflections and data presented and discussed in this text represent a portion of the conclusions after an investigation carried out in a master’s research, whose focus was on understanding the curriculum of the training course for chemistry teachers in effect since 2017/2 at UFRGS. The study reported in this article consists of the analysis of the responses obtained from undergraduates through the application of questionnaires. The emphasized issues concern the structure of the course, its disciplines, didactic procedures, teaching strategies, materials, evaluation forms and other aspects aimed at the contribution of specific, pedagogical, and articulating disciplines in the formation of chemical educators. The results indicate maintenance of a curricular matrix that favors academic content taught in the traditional way, but with the inclusion of disciplines characterized by future teachers as essential to the formation of their teaching identity, pedagogical autonomy, and professional development. In addition, there is a disparity between the didactic procedures followed in the different disciplines, which indicates aspects to be prioritized in future reconfigurations of the curricular matrix.

Epistemological entanglements: Decolonizing understandings of identity and knowledge in English language teaching

This article explores how educators might move towards decolonizing our understandings of identity and knowledge. How might we both acknowledge and move beyond the reality that knowledge about identity is simultaneously constructed by colonialism and inseparable from the teaching and learning of English? Drawing on ethnographic data, including observations and interviews, from two studies of teacher identity, one of English teachers collaborating in Tanzania and one of MA-TESOL students in the U.S., this article conceptualizes identities outside the confines of colonial ideologies and Global North-dominated theories. Drawing on Santos's epistemologies of the South and Ubuntu-inspired identity-in-community, the authors describe how localized notions of identity among English teachers can challenge and reformulate those dominant in Global North education.

Paulo Freire and Latin American pedagogy: the construction of a pedagogical identity

RESUMO O argumento neste ensaio é que a pedagogia de Paulo Freire representa tanto uma consolidação do pensamento pedagógico latino-americano quanto o ponto de partida para novos desenvolvimentos na área. O texto está divido em quatro partes. Na primeira, procura-se olhar como Paulo Freire constrói a sua visão de América Latina, com especial atenção para o tempo de exílio no Chile. A segunda parte trata de compreender o contexto de práxis na época em que se forma a pedagogia do oprimido, destacando a relação com a teologia e a pesquisa social. Segue-se a identificação de antecedentes da pedagogia do oprimido, exemplificando como a obra de Paulo Freire se constitui dentro de uma rica tradição pedagógica. Por fim, na quarta parte, são destacadas marcas da pedagogia latino-americana nas quais se faz presente de maneira mais evidente a presença de Paulo Freire. A conclusão aponta perspectivas para futuras pesquisas como seguimento do centenário do nascimento de Paulo Freire.

LEARNER FEEDBACK TO THE INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATOR’S EAP TEACHING: A REFLECTIVE STUDY

While the success of language instruction is unquestionably reflected in students’ performance in communicating in the target language, their voices generally can best express their success, disappointment, or complacency worth to reflect. This article, based on the study held at Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta in 2021, reports on a mixed-methods investigation that examines how an initial teacher educator (ITE) manages a course in English for academic purposes (EAP) from students’ perspectives. Fifty-five sociology education students selected through convenience sampling participated in a quantitative survey and focus group discussion. The quantitative data analysis shows students' positive views regarding the initial teacher educator's general performance, delivery, time management, material, media, assessment, and care. To complement the quantitative findings, the qualitative data scrutinized through thematic analysis suggest three imperative measures for more effective EAP instruction. Even though students rated ITEs performance as "Very Good" and her pedagogical competencies as "Very High," some qualitative data reveal the students' empirical voices that at least several adjustments must be made by acting on three imperative measures. This study provides insights into the self-study design for ITEs on upscaling their TPACK, professional commitments, and pedagogical identity.

“Terror victims are probably not the easiest to follow up”: students’ perception of learning and teaching in the aftermath of trauma

ABSTRACT In August 2011, Norwegian schools welcomed survivors of the Utøya massacre to a new school year. Based on interviews with 135 students who went back to school weeks after experiencing extreme trauma, this study investigates their perception of schooling and learning. Sixty percent of the students reported a variety of reduced academic functioning, and they were not prepared for the learning impairments they faced. Their stories indicate that neither were the schools. Rather, schools appeared to be trauma sensitive only to certain aspects of the trauma-induced effects on schooling: A variety of actions aimed at enhancing school well-being were implemented, however few educational measures to assist and restore impaired academic functioning were reported. The students blamed themselves for reduced academic performance, and had few expectations with regard to teachers helping them academically. The findings are discussed in the context of influential pedagogical ideals in Norwegian and Scandinavian schools.

Construction of Teacher Professional Identity through Initial Training

The construction of a professional identity is a key element in the transition to the teaching profession, which begins its development at the initial training, especially during professional training courses. Purpose: This article collects the experiences related to the construction of the teaching identity of teachers who graduated from two state universities of the Santiago Metropolitan Region in Chile. Methodology: Interpretative-qualitative research was carried out, framed in a phenomenological design. Semi-structured interviews were applied to 10 teachers who graduated from a course of Primary Education Teaching in 2014 and are still practicing the profession in the school system. Categories and subcategories were created from their tellings, establishing relationships between teacher identity and initial training. Results: This study shows that teachers value their initial training, especially regarding values, discipline, and experiences of training in different contexts as constitutive elements of their professional identity. However, both groups describe unsatisfactory situations experienced as beginner teachers, where they recognized the weaknesses of their initial training for overcoming the complexities of the school context. Conclusions: This study points to the need to strengthen the articulation in the process of training from university onwards and the support of the educational establishment.

Exploring approaches to community music delivery by practitioners with and without additional support needs: A qualitative study

Previous community music research indicates a diverse field with many forms of practice. Understanding the views of community music practitioners about their approaches offers an important way to understand their professional identities and strategies they employ. A qualitative study interviewed five community music practitioners from the same company to investigate their approaches. Two had 30 years of experience and were training three practitioners in workshop leading; one trainee (Joseph) has additional support needs (ASN). Two lay researchers with ASN contributed to thematic analysis. Two themes were identified: pedagogical identities accentuated personalization and enacting inclusivity as key dimensions of being a workshop leader; interpersonal processes demonstrated the crucial nature of individualized communication, humour and building relationships. Although Joseph’s interview shared these themes, he also identified confidence, adaptability and creativity as key qualities for himself to develop and expressed a strong personal identification with participants’ development of self-efficacy. While interviewees had varied musical backgrounds and skills, common principles may offer a basis for the translatable beneficial impacts of community music across the highly diverse facilitators and settings that characterize this field. Appreciating pedagogical contributions of practitioners with ASN can help in envisaging new identities and ways of being creative and inclusive in community music practice.

Improved RRT-Based Moving Path Planning Algorithm for Teaching Reform and Innovation in Western Orchestral Ensemble Classes in Colleges and Universities.

Western orchestral instruments in colleges and universities, as important instruments, occupy a central place in many bachelor's degree programs in music education. Music teaching reform and innovation are central to the creative wisdom of music teachers, their musical upbringing, and the lived experience of their students. For teachers, the process of pedagogical reform and innovation is the process by which teachers realize their own pedagogical ideals. Teachers must first be motivated; in the absence of motivation, any advanced teaching methods will become pale in comparison and lose their value and usefulness. Therefore, the construction of teaching activities requires teachers to take responsibility for the education and support of students, to align their teaching goals with the development of each student, to make the students' feelings closely connected to them, and to make them feel their value in the learning process. Starting from teaching western orchestral instrument ensembles in colleges and universities, this thesis uses the research method of improving RRT's moving path planning algorithm to explain and analyze some problems that arise in teaching western orchestral instrument ensembles in colleges and universities and puts forward constructive suggestions and recommendations.

The ignorant tallerista: toward a community of practice in the representation of the literary workshop in the Southern Cone

ABSTRACT This study reflects on the idea of community of practice in a corpus of contemporary Latin American texts that address literary workshops as a learning space. Thus, it is intended to demonstrate how the idea of community of practice, such as that of pedagogical identity or repertoire, appears in contemporary texts as an established, recognisable practice and, in general, linked to the idea of an ignorant schoolmaster (Rancière). For this reason, the study reviews the classes of Hebe Uhart compiled by Liliana Villanueva; the chronicles of Villanueva on the workshops of renowned Latin American authors such as Abelardo Castillo and Liliana Heker; and essays by Tamara Kamenzsain, Fabián Casas, and Luis López-Aliaga. Lastly, the study highlights texts by prominent Latin American writers in which they reflect on the practice of writing as a community exercise of the creation of knowledge developed and reproduced by practitioners.

Between Democratic Ideals and Local Conditions: Elementary School Teachers’ Narratives of Progressive Teaching in Sweden in the 1940s

ABSTRACT Teachers’ implementation of and attitudes to school reforms and overriding pedagogical ideals have long been a topic of debate and research. In this article, we centre on teachers’ descriptions of how progressive teaching was conducted as well as on the teachers’ reasons for implementing such teaching in the 1940s. This study is based on written material consisting of 360 elementary school teachers’ accounts of their teaching collected in 1946. The material was collected by a government investigation of how progressive teaching was conducted in Sweden. The accounts offer detailed descriptions of how pupils were activated and how elementary teachers at the time could use the community as a teaching resource. The article is inspired by a prosopography approach, in which the basic assumption is that it is possible to extend knowledge of social processes and societal development by studying the group profile of members of various institutions such as political or professional organisations. The analysis is based on John Dewey’s and Larry Cuban’s perspectives on progressivism. We found that, according to teaching the theme of pupils participation was frequently reported in 59% of the accounts, while student interaction (35%) and extended classroom (16%) were less reported. The teachers motivated their teaching on the basis of general ideals, as democracy. Also important were practical circumstances such as available teaching resources as well as physiological aspects as student’s interest and development.

Narratives of race and identity in English language teaching

ABSTRACT The continued spread of Western ideology, English as a lingua franca, and the myth of the native speaker all play a role in the racialisation of language teaching (Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Ramjattan, V. A. 2019. Raciolinguistics and the aesthetic labourer. Journal of Industrial Relations 61, no. 5: 726-738. doi:10.1177/0022185618792990.). As a former English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher, numerous racialised encounters compelled me to reflect on my own professional identity as an educator and seek out the lived experiences of other teachers of colour. A framework that connects foundational elements of sociocultural identity theory to theoretical perspectives from critical race theory was utilised to co-construct narratives from four EFL teachers. Data collection relied on three interviews and four forum posts. Transcribed data were then coded using first and second cycle coding methods, and thematically analysed. Findings depict discriminatory practices in EFL hiring, self-efficacy issues surrounding authenticity, racialised interactions, the influence of race on professional identity, and an absence of diversity in curricular materials.

Chinese language teachers' dichotomous identities when teaching ingroup and outgroup students.

Research into second language teacher identity has experienced a shift in recent years from a cognitive perspective to social constructionist orientation. The existing research in Chinese language literature in relation to Foreign Language (CFL) teachers’ identity shift is principally in relation to the change of social, cultural, and institutional contexts. Built on the current literature, this research asks: “How might teachers’ self-images or self-conceptualizations be renegotiated when they are located within their own mainstream cultural and educational system, yet comprised of students from various cultural backgrounds?” The data were collected from a group of CFL teachers in a South China university. The research found that students’ backgrounds largely impacted on, and led to, the teachers’ dichotomous relational identities, but did not dramatically change the teachers’ perception on what or how much subject knowledge to be possessed to make an ideal CFL teacher. This attribute of their identity was sustained even though the teaching content was modified at a practical level in response to groups’ differences. Further, the CFL teachers’ pedagogical identity remained stable with only minor modifications when teaching “ingroups” and “outgroups” of students.