Professional Identities: A Narrative Inquiry of One Public Preschool Teacher

• In Event: Roundtable Session 39
  In Roundtable Session: Becoming a Teacher: Construction of Teacher Identity

Abstract

Within this paper I present a narrative inquiry of how one public preschool teacher, Sophia, understands and negotiates her professional identity within a major metropolitan school district. In drawing from a cultural models lens, the theoretical perspective of this research is based on the premise that identities are socially constructed, individually understood and negotiated within social spaces. In using narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and with the understanding that professional action has a reciprocal relationship with professional identity (Watson, 2006) this research will explore how Sophia has come to understand her professional identity throughout her life experiences and how she choose to author her identity in response to multiple discourses of professional and to cultural and political demands.

Author

• Jamie Huff Sisson, University of South Australia