Abstract
This chapter explores the notion of teacher professional identity, reporting on a three-year study that sought to understand the formation and mediation of professional identity for secondary school teachers. It highlights the domains of personal experience, professional context and external political environment in the ever-emerging construction of teacher professional identity and suggests that ‘identity anchors’ work to fix teachers’ professional identities at particular points in their careers, providing a connection point between the essential identity question of ‘Who am I in this context?’ and broader questions of moral and educational purpose.
This chapter is jointly dedicated to Susan and ‘Skye’, who, in the knowledge that her time was limited, gladly and willingly gave some of it to me and my study. Vale.
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Notes
- 1.
This notion of identity ‘anchors’ is used, albeit slightly differently, in some of the literature relating to work–life balance. Thompson and Bunderson developed the notion, arguing that “individuals ‘anchor’ their identities, in a generalized manner, either in the work or nonwork domain” (Thompson and Bunderson 2001, p. 28). My version of the term is different in that it relates more specifically to aspects of teachers’ work and suggests a high degree of mobility between anchors.
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Mockler, N. (2011). Becoming and ‘Being’ a Teacher: Understanding Teacher Professional Identity. In: Mockler, N., Sachs, J. (eds) Rethinking Educational Practice Through Reflexive Inquiry. Professional Learning and Development in Schools and Higher Education, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0805-1_9
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