Professional Identity Development in a Change Laboratory Intervention

• In Event: Cultural Historical Perspectives on Identity: A Tool for Dismantling Inequality and Promoting Just Educational Possibilities

Abstract

1. Objective

This paper explores Professional Identity (PI) development in a Change Laboratory (CL) intervention. In line with Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), We follow the development of Professional Identity during a CL conducted in a French University Institute of Teacher Training by analyzing verbal exchanges thorough CL sessions.

2. Theoretical Background

Within CHAT, Change Laboratory -CL (Author 2, 2021; Engeström, 2007) is an interventionist methodology where the participants analyze and actively co-design a new activity system. As a catalyst of social change driven by the actors, the LC constitutes a space conducive to apprehending collective and individual transformations, particularly identity transformations.
Roth (2007) provides a useful conceptualization of identity compatible with CHAT. Following Vygotsky’s, he state’s that “individual…is a higher form of sociality” (Vygotsky, 1989, p. 59). Thus, Identity is a composite and dynamical construct of many often or sometimes contradictory identities. Professional Identity is conceptualized a composite and dynamical construct of many often or sometimes contradictory identities.

3. Methods and data sources

The intervention took place in the context of an INSPÉ (University Institute of Teacher Education) geographically distributed over 5 very remote sites (the distance between two sites can be up to 300 km). Two main linked developmental challenges were highlighted: the attractiveness of the sites and the equity for students.
The first six sessions of the CL have been transcribed in full. The first stage of the analysis aims to identify the gradual shift across the sessions from an individual and experiential point of view to a more systemic and collective point of view. The second stage of the analysis aims to show the multiple professional identities to which the professionals refer during the CL (e.g., executive secretary, member of the management team, university staff). The third part of the analysis aims to identify possible conflicts between these multiple identities. The fourth stage of the analysis sought to reconstruct the evolution of conflicts between multiple identities within the CL.

4. Results

The results show an evolution in identity during the expansive learning process. In presenting these evolutionary processes, we will focus more on some of the conflicts between multiple identities. We will not evade the processes of identity withdrawal that are also potentially generated by the design of a new activity system, symptomatic of the construction of new contradictions in the activity system to be implemented. For example, the need to solve problems with administrative tools to implement the new activity system was experienced by one or two participants in a negative way, even though the new activity system had been proposed and argued by themselves.

5. Significance

The results allow us to move towards a conceptualization of the concept of professional identity in a non-dualistic way that avoids opposing the individual and the collective. In this perspective, the development of the Professional Identity is conceived as the qualitative reorganization of the conflicts between the multiple identities that compose that make Professional Identity a fundamentally open and dynamic process.

Authors

• Yannick Lémonie, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
  Presenting Author

• Anne Bationo-Tillon, HEP Canton de Vaud
  Presenting Author

• Vincent Grosstephan, Aix Marseille Université
  Presenting Author