Shifting Practices Across Figured Worlds: A Teacher Reimagines Identity, Literacy, and the "Human Aspect"

• In Event: 42.052 - Negotiating Conflicting Frameworks to Reimagine Literacy, Language, and Dyslexia

Abstract

In this study, the authors use the framework of figured worlds (Holland, et al., 1998) to better understand some of the identity negotiations of one focal participant, Sebástian, an English teacher at an urban high school. As he endeavors to re-imagine his practice in light of new learning through various communities of practice, he recognizes some ways his prior experiences have influenced him and perpetuated taken-for-granted ideas about English teaching. New understandings of teacher identity development, particularly for teachers like Sebástian who identify as members of marginalized groups, can build understanding of how identities in and across sociocultural spaces can be part of making education more dynamic and more focused on what Sebástian called “the human aspect” of teaching.

Authors

• Jessica Cira Rubin, The University of Texas - Austin

• Charlotte L. Land, Pennsylvania State University