"Students Becoming Teachers": Understanding Complexities of Being a "Reformed" Teacher Through Novice Teacher Professional Self-Authoring

• In Event: Fight the Power: Intersections of Teachers Lives With Policies and Politics

Abstract

This paper explores persistent obstacles undermining inquiry-based reforms in STEM education. Extending existing scholarship on barriers to educational reform, we examine how discursive constructions of reform-based teaching may itself function to impede change. Analysis focuses on novice teachers’ talk of themselves as teachers and their teacher practice. Occupying the transitional space between the progressive discourses of the academy and the more conservative discourses of the workplace, novice teachers provide key insight into educational stagnation. Through a fine-grained discourse analysis of novice teachers’ efforts to self-author as reform-based teachers, this study demonstrates how the growing prominence of reform discourses function to limit the identifcatory possibilities for novice teachers in ways that inhibit professional growth.

Authors

• Stephen Peters, McGill University

• Heather McPherson, McGill University