“You Do Not Fit Here Anymore”: Developing a Research Identity as Teacher Educator

• In Event: International Perspectives on the Professional Development of Teacher Educators in Contemporary University Contexts

Abstract

Problem and Objectives
The Netherlands has a dual system of higher education: traditional universities and institutes for higher vocational education. Until recently, research was the responsibility of the universities but new social and economic needs for a better educated workforce have pushed Holland to now require research by faculty in higher vocational education institutions. Because most teachers are prepared in these vocational settings (while education researchers are prepared in traditional universities), that means that teacher educators are being required to conduct research for the first time.
This research that they conduct is mainly practice-based and aims at not only improving the practice of individual teacher educators, but also improving teacher education programs (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2004). Yet teacher educators are also encouraged—by means of scholarships—to study for a doctoral degree at a traditional university. This type of required research, however, is less directly concerned with the practice of teacher education and more focused on academic knowledge about teacher education.
This paper reports on a study that examined how the two categories of education researcher developed research identities as educations specialists. The paper also investigated the nature of these research identities, and if—and how—the new research identity of teacher educators affected their professional opportunities for employment once they were finished.

Methods and Findings
We analyzed data collected from two sources. One is documents about research in higher vocational education. The second is semi-structured interviews with ten primary teacher educators: five teacher educators engaged in research activities in their own institute and five who completed a PhD at a traditional university. The interviews were analyzed by way of professional identity framings (Author, 2010).
Preliminary findings indicate that all teacher educators who engaged in research developed some kind of research identity. Teacher educators engaged in the practice-based research built identities that fit the boundaries of their own vocational institutes. These teacher educators found it hard to combine their research with the demands of their everyday teacher-education work, and as a result did not develop strong researcher identities. The teacher educators who completed a PhD developed strong identities as researchers during their years of doctoral study. Yet, they felt alienated from their teacher-education colleagues, and the gap between them and their more practice-oriented colleagues widened over time. Additionally, due to lack of funds, some of the PhD teacher educators could not continue their research after they finished their PhD and returned to teacher-education work in vocational institutes. This added a new complexity to their developing identities as teacher educators, and raises questions about the professional viability of encouraging researcher identities in both contexts of higher education.
The paper discusses how the teacher educators relied on the multiple, sometimes competing, contexts of their learning and work to form their identities and why university-trained teacher educator/researchers encountered problems finding work after finishing their PhD studies. This and other findings will be discussed in detail and placed in the larger contexts of the Netherlands and Western Europe more generally.

Authors

• Anja Swennen, VU University Amsterdam

• Monique L. Volman, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Research Institute Child Development and Education

• Gerda Geerdink, Vocational University of Arnhem and Nijmegen