Looking Back, Looking Forward: Inquiring Narratively Into Sustaining a Teacher Identity

• In Event: Shifting Stories, Shifting Landscapes

Abstract

Like many young scholars in the current higher education climate in the US, I completed my PhD but struggled to find academic employment. After considering the how my identity as an academic was challenged I determined to inquire into the ways in which I have sustained myself as I seek to move from graduate student to academic faculty. The purpose of this study is to examine my narratives of sustenance and resilience in facing the challenge of experiencing the living contradiction of being and not being a teacher educator scholar in order to develop understandings of what is sustaining and what makes me resilient as a teacher educator scholar.

Author

• Eliza A. Pinnegar, Learning Adventures Child Care Centre