Exploring Early Career Physical Education Teachers' Professional Identity Construction in Rural China: Insights From Socio-Ecological Perspective and Practice Architecture Theory

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Eight
  In Roundtable Session: Voices From Educators in Rural Contexts (Table 5)

Abstract

This qualitative study explored 15 early career physical education (PE) teachers’ professional identity construction from rural China. Identity was shown to be a multifaceted, context-specific, and continuously changing social-cultural phenomenon. From a socio-ecological standpoint, the demonstrated early career rural Chinese PE teachers’ professional identity construction was shaped by the interplay between family backgrounds, Chinese Confucian cultural tradition, physicality, educational experiences, workplace contexts, and the PE core competency curriculum policy. From the perspective of practice architecture, the professional identity construction encompassed their cultural-discursive arrangements (sayings), material-economic arrangements (doings), and social-political arrangements (relating). PE teachers’ professional identity may be facilitated by school administrators and education policymakers support.

Authors

• Gang Zhu, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Aidong Zhang, Louisiana State University at Shreveport
  Presenting Author