Exploring Scholarly Identity Development in Our Academic Sandbox: Building Castles and Rebuffing Backyard Bullies

• In Event: Roundtable Session 104
  In Roundtable Session: Forming Scholarly Identities: Narratives of Female Leaders

Abstract

Teacher educators at various stages of their academic careers experience triumphs and challenges in development of their scholarly identities. Authors of this paper immersed themselves in scholarly enculturation processes through adoption/implementation of some academic practices and rejection of others, as well as reactive creation of novel and adaptive approaches to dilemmas faced, where identity becomes strengthened through situated agency. They describe their experiences framed within a Sandbox metaphor which serves as a heuristic template for exploring identity development and meaning making of formative experiences in academia. The early childhood metaphor of the sandbox as a place to explore, build, develop, and re-group when everything falls apart resonates with teacher educator stories of triumphs and challenges.

Authors

• Denise M. McDonald, University of Houston - Clear Lake

• Cheryl J. Craig, University of Houston

• Michele Kahn, University of Houston - Clear Lake

• Carrie Markello, University of Houston

• Margie Garcia, University of Houston - Clear Lake

• Donna Smith, University of Houston - Clear Lake

• Jean Kiekel, University of Houston