Metaphors Teachers Live By: Societal, Economic, and Value Contexts of Teaching

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Discourses of Teaching and Being a Teacher

Abstract

Teachers are often charged with implementing educational reforms and preparing new generations of students for changing societies (Fullan, 1993; Lukšienė et al., 1994/1992). However, teacher understandings of themselves and educational change are rarely taken into account. This study examines three metaphors a teacher inscribed in an open-ended interview about the impact of educational reforms on teachers in Lithuania. Through discursive and sociohistorical analyses of the metaphors and their intertextual references, this study makes visible that teacher view of self, her life, work, and role as a change agent is constrained by the historical-political, social, and economic conditions of her life. The study provides insights for scholars and policy makers seeking to engage teachers in implementing educational reforms.

Author

• Audra Skukauskaite, University of the Incarnate Word