This thesis brings together my two study and work interests, postcolonial theory and classroom-based research, in order to explore how teacher identities are constructed within the tensions between policy and practice. I begin by arguing for the usefulness and value of postcolonial theory in interpreting empirical findings because it foregrounds the politics of representation and provides good theoretical tools for examining how modernist policy discourse constructs traditional, rural teachers as subjects of difference. I use a postcolonial view of identity and agency as being always strategic and provisional, arising out of the subject's attempts to negotiate the contradictions in western modernity's false claims to universality. This view of the subject is linked with the interactionist concept of teacher strategy as arising within sites of contradiction and constraint that are generated within the wider social structure. In my attempt to identify the primary contradictions and constraints with which teachers work, I draw on empirical work carried out in local schools and argue that for rural teachers the tensions between policy and practice hinge around the disjuncture between tradition and modernity. I use Giddens (1990) to argue that, due to its origins in the West and its history of colonialism under the guise of rationality and enlightenment, modernity . cannot be integrated with tradition but can only displace or shallowly assimilate tradition. In light of this theory, I question the assumption that an imported modernist policy discourse can be contextualised and made appropriate to South African conditions. To explore this question further, I use Durkheim (1964) and Bernstein's (1971) concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity to map the features of these two different forms of solidarity onto case studies of South African schools. These case studies reveal that policy requires traditional rural schools to undergo fundamental changes that threaten the foundations on which their cohesion and effectiveness is built, leaving many schools with a profound sense of displacement. Turning to the question of the strategies teachers use to negotiate the contradictions that arise within these "displaced" schools, I find further evidence of modernity's attempts to appropriate and shallowly assimilate traditional subjects in what I perceive as a strategy of mimicry. Arguing, with Bhabha (1984), that the strategy of mimicry is a response to, and disruption of, the western modernist discourses of rationality, democracy, meritocracy and equal opportunity on which all of modernity's promises of progress rest, I examine the particular mimetic strategy of "false clarity" (after Fullan, 1991) and suggest that the often unfounded confidence of "new outcomes-based teachers"is partly a mimicry of the false clarity of policy, and the false clarity teacher development programmes which attempt to "transfer" the abstract principles and "best methods" put forward by policy by means of "generic" skills and values which are not generic at all to rural teachers in traditional contexts, and which they then tend to shallowly and mechanically mimic. In light of this discussion, I recommend that teacher development needs to pay more attention to "the singer, not the song" (Goodson in Jessop, 1997: 242) by shifting the focus from methods and principles to teachers' subjective understandings of their own work and contexts, and by strengthening teachers' grasp and enjoyment of the formal, conceptual knowledge they teach. I also suggest that, to avoid the risk of trying to prescribe and reform teacher identities, how teachers establish their own "sense of plausibility" (Prabhu, 1990) in their own contexts should best be left to them. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

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This study investigates the ways in which healthy school initiatives shape teachers’ identities on both a professional and personal level. Using social constructionism as a research lens, and drawing on the research literature pertaining to health promotion, critical obesity and fatness discourses, body pedagogy, and the embodiment of health, teachers’ experiences working within the healthy school environments are explored. This study seeks to better understand how teachers navigate the dominant discourses of biopedagogies and how these discourses shape their professional and personal lives. Discourses of health and identity are explored through individual interviews with generalist early-years teachers in one school division in Manitoba to get a sense of how health is understood both inside and outside the classroom for today’s practicing teachers. / May 2016

“Becoming” is a natural phenomenon that is experienced throughout one’s life, and yet it does not appear to involve a simple process. This study was about how preservice teachers become teachers. As such, it was focused on the developmental processes that preservice teachers experience as their conceptions of teaching and their teacher identities change throughout their teacher education program. Although the two developmental aspects have been importantly considered by teacher educators when setting goals for teacher education and have been popular topics to educational researchers, few studies have explicitly observed how conceptions of teaching and teacher identities are related to each other in preservice teachers’ professional development trajectories. In a longitudinal study that tracked eight preservice teachers for three semesters of their teacher preparation, naturalistic observations of student teaching and semi-structured interviews served as the primary data sources. Data analysis was inductive and interpretative, using the qualitative methods of grounded theory. All of the preservice teachers in the study experienced conceptual change in their conceptions of teaching toward the direction aligned with their teacher education program, though their developmental patterns varied in terms of nature, speed, and distinctiveness. In the process of conceptual development, preservice teachers’ attention shifted from a focus on self to a focus on students, which I called an outward journey. They also evolved their teacher identities throughout the program with increasing confidence in becoming a teacher every semester. The formation of their teacher identities began by recognizing self as a teacher as positioned by others and continued with self-cultivation as a teacher, a process I called an inward journey. Needing continuous validation and reflection, the two journeys were closely related, sharing some characteristics and mechanism of growth and reciprocally influencing each other. Through interpretation of the data, I concluded that these two journeys cannot be separated from each other but, instead, should be integrated into external and internal development of becoming a teacher. As lifelong learners, preservice teachers are beginning the continual journey of becoming a good teacher throughout their career. / text

The purpose of this narrative study is to understand the experience of ESL female teachers in postsecondary education. The ESL female teachers will be defined as female teachers who speak English as a second language. The study asks the following research questions: What are the lived experiences of ESL female teachers in postsecondary education? How do ESL female teachers in postsecondary education narrate their experiences and negotiate their teacher identities? How can the above understanding contribute to the inclusion of ESL female teachers in an increasingly diversified educational landscape? The researcher adopts an intersectional stance and a poststructuralist understanding of subjectivity and positioning to study identity. Life story interviews and narrative inquiry are utilized as methodology to collect stories from ESL female teachers teaching in postsecondary education and to retell the same so as to achieve an informed understanding of the phenomenon under study. The study reveals that the participants have experienced an intersection of multiple identities which collectively function to marginalize them under the discourse of difference as deficit. Apart from efforts to adapt to the dominant discourse, the participants have also acted to utilize their multiple identities so as to resist negative positioning. The participants’ experiences have posed questions concerning what institutional and systemic changes are needed in order to help their inclusion in postsecondary education. / Graduate / fuhong2015@gmail.com

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Sally J. Yahnke / Jeong-Hee Kim / This study is a narrative inquiry into the lives of physical education teachers in order to gain insight into their identities as physical education teachers and their understanding of what it means to be physically literate as well as investigate into the thoughts of physical education teachers about the concept of comprehensives school physical activity programs. According to Whitehead (2010), physical literacy is a disposition to capitalize on the human embodied capability, wherein an individual has the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activity throughout a lifetime. Development of the debate regarding physical literacy was stimulated by the study of existentialist and phenomenological philosophers, such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, who articulate a particular stance towards the nature of our mind and body connection. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/2010) philosophy facilitated the gain of knowledge regarding 1) how stories of physical education teachers help promote physical literacy in schools; 2) how physical education teachers perceive the mind/body connection; and 3) how physical education teachers understand what it means to be physically literate. The contributions to the thought and practice of physical education as a result of this study will highlight 1.) physical literacy is embodied in adapted physical education; 2.) the role of physical education teachers is not just teaching and moving the body, but to help students learn better; 3.) A stressed mind affects the body, and having a healthy body helps students learn better; 4.) A new role of physical education teachers is to bridge the gap between physical education and the classroom by providing ideas to classroom teachers regarding brain breaks. 5.) Teacher education programs need to highlight reflective practices that help future physical educators draw upon knowledge from their own life experiences to enrich their teaching; 6.) Physical education teachers should collaborate with public health officials to implement comprehensive school physical activity programs.

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Despite the growing interest in the issue of identity formation in the broader TESOL research field, few studies have been concerned with the question of female teachers’ identity formation from a feminist poststructuralist perspective. This study also seeks to further the feminist poststructuralist research within the Iranian TESOL and bridge the substantive gap within the existing literature, which is an almost untouched area of research regarding the teachers’ identity formation. This thesis attempts to explore the construction of identities of eight Iranian female teachers of English and the discourses that shape them through examining their narratives, using data gathered from interviews and email correspondences. In a two-year collaboration with the participants, I applied a feminist poststructuralist conceptual framework to examine the participants’ main subject positions and the prevailing discursive practices that construct them. The research data, collected by individual interviews and email correspondence, indicates the teachers’ identities as multiple, complex, and contradictory. I contend that multiple subject positions stem out of the clash of the multiple discourses that are available to them. Impacted by both gender and professional discourses that sometimes even collide, the findings show how these women struggle to conceive a sense of coherent self. The results of the analysis indicate that the gender and professional discourses are of normative, disciplinary, and individualizing nature. Negotiating identities within themselves and within the complex cultural context they live in, these female teachers are involved in an ongoing process of adjustment, adaptation and resistance.

This thesis reports the findings of research conducted with Irish primary teachers who had recently completed probation. The study employed semi-structured interviews to examine the teachers’ perceptions of beneficial influences on the development of their teaching identity. The principals of the two schools involved were also interviewed. The interviews were designed to allow me to explore influences that had been identified in the literature as important in the formation of teacher identity. In the interviews, themes that have been identified in the literature on teacher identity were explored with participants. The teachers identified incidents and persons whom they perceived as having inspired them to become teachers. Their perceptions of how their interactions with pupils and parents had influenced their identities were examined, as were their experiences of school cultures and of working in collaboration with colleagues. Finally, their awareness of theoretical literature as a tool to help their further development was examined. The findings of the study confirm that teachers’ identities are formed by a combination of factors and add a more detailed understanding of those factors in the Irish context. Beginning teachers are influenced strongly by their own biographies, and by their experiences as students prior to and during their pre-service teacher education. They are sensitive to the perceptions of them by parents and pupils. Their willingness to engage collaboratively with other colleagues, including their principals and mentors, features strongly in their own perceptions of how their identities have been formed. The importance of the school culture in helping to shape the teacher’s identity is highlighted as a phenomenon which both shapes and is reshaped in turn by teachers and their colleagues. Literature is generally not considered relevant by the Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in this study, although the principals’ responses indicate their familiarity with themes common in the literature concerning teacher induction, and with concepts of teachers as reflective practitioners who need to continuously examine their practice and experience in order to promote the ongoing shaping of their identity as teachers. The thesis argues for a conception of teacher professionalism which respects the identity of teachers and the agency of teachers as individuals in a world of individuals who are engaged in the constructionist creation of knowledge. This understanding prioritises practical wisdom, phronesis, over the technical knowledge, techne, and knowledge of subject, episteme, which teachers also require. This is at odds with widespread competency-based conceptions of teacher professionalism. The findings of the research indicate that the development of teacher identity is complex and is affected by a broader range of influences than the imperative to develop competencies. It calls for an alternative approach to teacher induction which acknowledges the importance of these factors.

Professional learning communities are receiving attention in research on in-service teacher professional development. Arguments for professional learning communities emphasize teacher learning as a long-term, continuous, developmental and collaborative process. Such learning is viewed as necessary for supporting sustained improvements in teachers’ teaching practices and learners’ learning. The study reported in this thesis drew on these ideas to investigate how mathematics teachers learned in a professional learning community, and how their learning influenced changes in their teaching practices and identities. The study was a pilot for a larger, on-going project at the University of the Witwatersrand. Using the ideas of situated learning theory and data-informed practice, the case study involved a professional learning community of five mathematics teachers and the researcher. The study was conducted in one township high school in Gauteng, South Africa. The professional learning community participated in a year-long professional development intervention, which consisted of a set of developmental and structured professional learning activities. The activities involved analyzing learner errors in mathematics, identifying learners’ learning needs, planning and teaching innovative lessons for addressing the learning needs, and reflecting on how the lessons supported learners’ learning. The study investigated how teacher participation in the opportunities for learning was linked to shifts in their teaching practices and identities. The results show changes in teachers’ practices and their identities. Two teachers made shifts in their mode of teaching, task selection and implementation, and in their ways of engaging with learners’ ideas. Two other teachers made shifts in task selection. The shifts were sustained by one teacher in her teaching of the post-intervention lessons. All the teachers shifted in their ways of identifying themselves as members of communities. During and after the intervention, the teachers identified themselves as members of the professional learning community, and expressed visions of progressively learning together and improving their practice together. The shifts in teaching practice and teacher identity are explained by the opportunities for learning in the professional learning community. The results show how the links among teacher learning, teachers’ teaching practices and teacher identity were supported or constrained by features of the professional learning community.