Constructing “Good Teaching” Online: Teacher Influencers and the Politics of Professional Identity

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 1:45 pm
  In Poster Session: Platforms of Practice: Teacher Identity in Digital Spaces

Abstract

This study critically examines how teacher influencers navigate digital visibility and professional identity formation within platform economies. Drawing on teacher identity theory, critical media studies, feminist analyses of digital labor, and neoliberal critiques of education, the research explores how teaching is publicly constructed, commodified, and contested online. Through critical autoethnography and critical content analysis of teacher influencer posts on Instagram, the study interrogates tensions between authenticity, care, agency, and emotional boundaries. Findings illuminate how market ordering reshape teacher identity, challenging sustainability and ethics in the profession. This work contributes to scholarship on teachers’ lived experiences, professional legitimacy, and the sociopolitical forces shaping teacher identity in a media-saturated era.

Author

• Anne E. Martin, Georgia State University