Introduction: Teacher Professional Identity—A View of the Literature and an Emerging Integrative Model

• In Event: Teacher Identity and Motivation: Concepts, Research Designs, and Empirical Examples

Abstract

Objectives
The goals of this presentation are to provide (1) a conceptual review of the teacher identity literature, focusing on paradigms, definitions, and corresponding methodological approaches, (2) an introduction to the integrative Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) as applied to the professional identity of teachers, and (3) a discussion of the empirical approach that corresponds with conceptualizing teacher identity as a complex dynamic system.

Theoretical framework
We will begin by highlighting the divergent and convergent aspects of conceptual definitions and operationalizations of teacher identity in the extant literature (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Olsen, 2008), providing a scheme of epistemological assumptions and corresponding methodological practices that stem from the psychosocial (Erikson, 1968), social-cognitive (Markus & Nurius, 1986), social-sociological (Gee, 2001), and social-cultural (Holland & Lachicotte, 2007) approaches to identity. We will follow to define teachers’ identity as a continuously emerging and contextually-culturally constructed network of self-perceptions, beliefs, values, goals, and actions that the teacher holds as central to who he or she is as a teacher. We will point to the content, structure, and process aspects of identity and to the need for comprehensive models that integrate these facets. We will then present the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) (Kaplan, Garner & Semo, 2014) (see Figure 1), with its four inter-dependent components: (1) the teacher’s ontological and epistemological beliefs (e.g., teacher-centered, student-centered beliefs about teaching and learning); (2) purpose and goals of teaching (e.g., facilitating meaningful learning, preparing for assessments); (2) the teacher’s self-perceptions and self-definitions (e.g., teaching efficacy, value of teaching); and (4) perceived action possibilities in teaching (e.g., traditional vs. constructivist instructional strategies). We will highlight the conceptual foundation of the model in Personal Investment Theory (Maehr, 1984; Maehr & McInerney, 2004), and point to the way adopting a complex dynamic systems approach to identity (Kunnen, 2012) allows the model to integrate important insights from the psychosocial, social-cognitive, and social-cultural perspectives on identity. We will elaborate on the assumptions regarding teacher’s PI that is captured by the model: (1) its dynamic and continuous self-emergence, which calls for simultaneous attention to content, structure, and process; (2) the interdependence of its elements, and hence the irreducibility of role identity to its components; (3) the non-linear and non-deterministic nature of its change; (4) its embeddedness in contextual-cultural as well as individual-dispositional characteristics; and (5) its unit-of-analysis within the person, and its dialogical relations with other systems within the person (i.e., other role identities) and outside of the person (i.e., role identities of other people such as students, colleagues, supervisors, and of organizations such as department, the school, and the education system). We will then present the methodological approach, data collection instruments and practices, and analytical procedures and materials (e.g., codebooks) that serve to guide investigations of teachers’ PI and its change in different settings. We will conclude the presentation with a brief introduction to the 7 studies presented in the posters including their research design, research questions, and instrumentation.

Authors

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University

• Joanna K. Garner, Old Dominion University