Teacher Subject Identity In Professional Practice

Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice focuses on a key, but neglected, element of a teacher’s identity: that of their subject expertise. Studies of teachers’ professional practice have shown the importance of a teacher’s identity and the extent to which it can affect their resilience, commitment and ultimately their effectiveness. Drawing upon narrative research undertaken with a range of teachers over a period of 14 years, the book explores how subject expertise can play a significant role in teacher identity, acting as a professional compass guiding teachers at all levels of their professional practice. It reveals powerful individual stories of meaning-making which highlight the dynamic importance of teachers’ subject expertise The book’s metaphor of a professional compass goes to the heart of teacher professionalism, and provides a valuable mechanism to enable teachers to respond to challenges they face in their daily practice. It enables teachers to consider the moral dimensions of their practice, and can constitute a significant component in professional formation and identity. Throughout the book the importance of subject expertise for teachers’ professional practice is explored at a range of scales: from the classroom to broad education policy, and at different stages of a teacher’s career which offers readers a deeper understanding of the importance of subject expertise for teachers. Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice makes a significant contribution to an under-researched area. It identifies the role and significance of teachers’ subject expertise as a dimension of their teacher identity. The book is key reading for teacher educators, policy makers and researchers with an interest in teachers’ professional development and practice.

This book explores the experiences, understandings, and beliefs that guide the professional practices of teacher educators. What are the responsibilities of doing the job and how does it re-shape the professional identity of those who do it, day in, day out?

This book explores the reflective potentialities offered by analyses of teachers’ professional learning narratives. The book has a specific focus on narratives on professional learning and professional identities emerging from different contexts and gives a deeper understanding of successful teachers’ narratives globally. Diverging from universally standardized constructions of idealized teacher identity and professional learning, the book provides analyses of a diversified set of cases with detailed descriptions of each teacher’s idiographic and professional context to gain a deeper understanding of situated professional identities. With contributions from a range of international backgrounds, it shows teachers of various age groups, subject areas and curricula contribute their narratives to help readers reflect on different trajectories toward becoming a teacher. These narratives provide insight into and a deeper understanding of the conditions and complex processes that being a "successful" teacher involves within these case studies, providing a useful contribution to the field of teacher education. Professional Learning and Identities in Teaching: International Narratives of Successful Teachers will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students of teacher education and international and comparative education.

Understanding teachers’ professional identities and their development is key to unpacking teachers’ professional lives, the quality of their instruction, their motivation and commitment to teach, and their career decision-making. This book features a number of scholars from around the world who represent a variety of disciplines, scientific paradigms, and inquiry methods in researching teacher identity. By bringing these chapters together, this volume initiates active scholarly conversations and extends the boundaries of teacher identity research and practice. This collection of chapters provides significant insight into teacher identity and will be essential reading for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, professional developers, and policy makers at various levels.

First Published in 1996. Arising from the 7th International Study Association on Teacher Thinking (ISATT) conference in 1995, this book presents a diverse, yet integrated, approach to understanding how research and practice in classrooms are changing.

Understanding Teacher Identity: The Complexities of Forming an Identity as Professional Teacher introduces the reader to a collection of research-based works by authors that represent current research concerning the complexities of teacher identity and the role of teacher preparation programs in shaping the identity of teachers. Important to teacher preparation, as a profession, is a realization that the psychological, philosophical, theoretical, and pedagogical underpinnings of teacher identity have critical importance in shaping who the teacher is, and will continue to become in his/her practice. Teacher identity is an instrumental factor in teachers’ and the students’ success. Chapter One opens the book with a focus on the development of teacher identity, providing an introduction to the book and an understanding of the growing importance of identity in becoming a teacher. Chapters Two–Nine present field-based research that examines the complexities of teacher identity in teacher preparation and the importance of teacher identity in the teaching and learning experiences of the classroom. Finally, Chapter Ten presents an epilogue focusing on teacher identity and the importance, as teacher educators and practitioners, of making sense of who we are and how identity plays a critical role in the preparation and practice of teachers.

This volume extends the authors' work on ""personal practical knowledge"" as the way through which teachers hone their craft - ""Teachers' Professional Knowledge Landscapes"". They examine the question of how professional identities are formed.

The contributors to this volume explore challenges and dilemmas around professional learning that confront educators in Australia. The book is organised around three dimensions of professional learning: professionalism, identity formation and communal sites of professional learning. It addresses important questions. In what ways do policies and practices mediate the construction of ‘a professional’ among current and future educators? How do communal spaces shape the professional learning of educators? What are the tensions that emerge in the construction of professional identity through professional learning? As a whole, all chapters provide insight into the dynamic nature of ‘professional becoming’.