Teacher Identity in Body Mapping as Intersectional Positionality (Poster 8)

• In Event: Saturday Poster Sessions 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Engaged Exploration: Inquiry, Mapping, and Making

Abstract

This study examines how elementary teacher candidates' (TCs) engagement in body maps—i.e., arts-informed tools and processes of (re)presenting one's lived experiences and identities—may contribute to their embodied aspects of identity work, using a critical race theory lens. These data were collected in an online asynchronous course in the Southeastern U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight how one focal TC's embodied experiences, her interactions with two peers, and material practices affected the three TCs' identity work in an online discussion space in intersectional ways. This study can benefit teachers' continuous professional learning and development, and can open new methodological perspectives in analyzing teacher identities at the intersection of discourses, bodies, and materials.

Author

• Jihea Maddamsetti, Old Dominion University