Teacher identity (Ti) is an important concept in helping to understand the variety of inter-connected influences that impact on the professional lives of teachers in further education (FE). Ti is under researched within the FE sector and is used in this study to analyse the impact of the marketization of FE (post-incorporation) on the roles of individual teachers and teacher managers. The study takes an interpretive stance using visual metaphors and the narratives of participant teachers, linked to their roles, and teaching journeys, to analyse and evaluate changes to professionalism and individual agency in response to the marketization of the sector. Key literature on Ti in FE, professionalism and teacher agency were used to develop an understanding of the effects of marketization in relation to the main question and market theory provided a lens through which to consider marketization in context. The findings identified the individualised nature of the effects of marketization on the identities of teachers and how they interpreted their roles. These were seen through different levels of teacher agency and changes to professionalism in response to managerialism and the altered culture of the colleges in the study. A summative conceptualisation of Ti in an FE context was developed, which provided an insight into the potential strategies adopted by staff in relation to marketization and the main question set for this study.

As exigências atuais em relação ao professor se estabelecem em torno de sua capacidade e sensibilidade de construir, planejar e gerir um currículo capaz de formar um cidadão em condições de, além de tomar atitudes socialmente responsáveis, também consiga produzir mudanças em busca de soluções para problemas que enfrentam em seu cotidiano. Espera-se, portanto, que o professor desenvolva, planeje e elabore projetos educacionais. No entanto, as pesquisas mostram que a maioria dos professores nem sempre está em condições de implementar, executar e gerir tais projetos e, de forma geral, reproduz o ensino que teve nas experiências que vivenciou enquanto aluno. Em nossa pesquisa, buscaremos investigar a trajetória percorrida por dois professores de Física, participantes de um grupo de professores que buscaram pôr em prática um projeto de caráter interdisciplinar, visando compreender como o resgate da dimensão intelectual docente pode ou não contribuir para o desenvolvimento da autonomia profissional do professor de Ciências. Nossa pesquisa parte da hipótese de que muitas das dificuldades enfrentadas pelos professores relacionam-se com a identidade docente de cada professor, bem como suas concepções acerca do exercício de sua autonomia profissional. Assim sendo, escolhemos adotar a modalidade de pesquisa qualitativa denominada estudo de caso, por estarmos mais interessados na identificação de aspectos próprios da realidade docente e do âmbito escolar que interferem decisivamente na maneira como o ensino é praticado, para, assim, analisar como os aspectos intrapessoais, interpessoais e institucionais dos professores interferiram na execução do projeto; caracterizar a autonomia dos docentes de física e analisar se a mesma se desenvolveu ao longo da trajetória do resgate intelectual do ofício de professor. Portanto, na metodologia de coleta de dados, a pesquisa se constituirá de três fases: o planejamento, a tomada de decisão e a análise que os professores fazem das medidas pedagógicas adotadas. Para análise, utilizaremos os referenciais que estudam a autonomia docente relacionando-a com a identidade profissional do professor, fixando nossas atenções, principalmente, nos processos reflexivos a partir do estabelecimento do quádruplo diálogo e do desenvolvimento da alteridade. / The current demands on the teacher are established around their ability and sensitivity to build, plan and manage a curriculum capable of forming a citizen in a position, in addition to taking socially responsible attitudes, can also produce changes in search of solutions to problems they face in their daily lives. It is expected, therefore, that the teacher develop, plan and develop educational projects. However, research shows that most teachers are not always able to deploy, run and manage such projects and, generally, reproduce education who had the experiences they experienced as students. In our research, we will seek to investigate the career trajectory by two professors of physics, members of a group of teachers who, in a work of action research, sought to implement an interdisciplinary project in order to understand how the rescue of teaching intellectual dimension can or not contribute to the development of professional autonomy of science teacher. Our research starts from the hypothesis that many of the difficulties faced by teachers are related to the teaching identity of each teacher and their conceptions of the exercise of their professional autonomy. Therefore, we chose to adopt the method of qualitative research called case study, because we are more interested in identifying specific aspects of the teaching reality and the school environment that interfere decisively in the way teaching is practiced, to thus analyze how aspects intrapersonal, interpersonal and institutional interfered of teachers in project implementation; characterize the autonomy of physics teachers and consider whether it developed along the path of intellectual rescue Teacher craft. Therefore, data collection methodology, the research will consist of three phases: planning, decision making and analysis that teachers do pedagogical measures adopted. For analysis, we will use the benchmarks studying teaching autonomy relating it to the professional identity of the teacher, fixing our attention mainly on the reflective processes from establishment of the quad dialogue and the development of otherness.

Despite the extensive research into teachers’ lives in recent decades, relatively little of it has focused on the experiences of motivated teachers. Past research has tended to focus upon the issue of retention in a profession that is dominated by regulation and performance measures. This thesis offers an original contribution to the field by exploring the experiences of established teachers who consider themselves to be motivated and who successfully navigate the tensions between the current education landscape and their personal values about teaching. The research provides insights into the complex context within which teachers work and the ways in which they manage this complexity. The methodology is grounded in the principles of adaptive theory which enables the analysis of subjective experience alongside analysis of pre-existing theories to reveal links between teachers’ actions and the structures and systems which affect them. As such, the research offers a new lens through which to consider the complex nature of teachers’ professional lives. The research consists of in-depth interviews with six teachers over the course of a year. The research findings reveal how successful teachers are able to adapt behaviours to negotiate tensions and take control of their own practice. The teachers in this study demonstrate curiosity and critical awareness of the issues in education that go beyond their daily practice. They have a deep understanding of their own values and the factors that influence them and are therefore able to position themselves within the profession and the organisation within which they work. This enables them to take positive action rather than merely cope with the challenges they face. The findings have implications for teacher training and development programmes and the ways in which they enable teachers to navigate and shape their own professional lives.

Within the field of mathematics teacher education, mathematics graduate students have recently become subjects of investigation. While research in this area tends to focus on future schoolteachers, little has been done to examine prospective university teachers of mathematics and their understanding of its teaching and learning. As a result, the experiences of mathematics graduate students and the development of their teaching practices are not well understood. Almost seventy-five percent of mathematics PhDs will become professors at post-secondary institutions dedicated to undergraduate education. Since much of their careers will be spent in the classroom, attending to the manner in which mathematics graduate students develop their teaching practices is important in understanding how they are shaped for their future profession. The purpose of this research project was to uncover issues and difficulties that arise as mathematics graduate students develop their views of their possible future roles as university teachers of mathematics. Over a six-month period, conversations were held with six mathematics graduate students exploring their experiences of and perspectives on mathematics teaching. Using hermeneutic inquiry and thematic analysis, the conversations were analysed and interpreted with attention to themes and experiences that had the potential to influence the graduate students ideas about and approaches to the task of teaching. This dissertation also attends to notions of identity for mathematics graduate students, in particular their emerging identities as mathematicians and what being a mathematician in the world means to them, as well as their identities as future post-secondary teachers of mathematics. The structures and expectations of behaviour within their department of mathematics had implications for how the participants formed their identities as mathematicians and mathematics teachers. Lave and Wengers notion of legitimate peripheral participation is explored with regard to the meta-themes that came through the analysis. These meta-themes are: replication where university mathematics teacher identity and classroom practices became a process of replication; resignation the research participants felt resigned to one particular way of being in mathematics and of mathematics teaching; and despondence the participants were beginning to lose their excitement about becoming post-secondary teachers of mathematics.

There is a shortage of secondary mathematics teachers throughout the United States (Howard, 2003, Matus, 1999). This deficit is heightened in urban areas (Bracey, 2002; Howard, 2003). Understanding how urban teachers develop into highly qualified, motivated teachers of urban learners may provide guidance in decreasing the shortage of urban secondary mathematics teachers and provide direction for teacher education programs in preparing future teachers of urban learners. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the experiences pre-service teachers undergo during student teaching and how those experiences impact their views on teaching in an urban context, as well as how their experiences impact the construction of their identities as teachers of urban learners. Six secondary mathematics pre-service teachers who have made the conscious decision to teach in urban schools participate in this study. Phenomenology is used as a philosophical and methodological framework. The theories of teacher thinking, situated cognition, and social identity provided a foundation to examine to research questions: How do pre-service teachers experience student teaching in an urban context; how do pre-service teachers’ experiences impact their views on teaching in urban schools; and how do pre-service teachers’ experiences impact the construction of their identities as teachers of urban learners? Data were collected via initial interviews, journaling throughout the student teaching experience, and phenomenological interviews. Colaizzi’s method for phenomenological data analysis was used to develop textual and structural descriptions of the phenomenon. This method of analysis led to concluding that constructive student teacher – cooperating teacher relationships lead to positive views of teaching in urban contexts and collective teaching dispositions. Negative relationships caused an aversion to teaching in urban environments and individualistic classroom practices. In regards to the construction of an identity as teachers of urban learners, the quality of the student teacher-cooperating teacher relationship was a factor. When an affirming relationship was present the student teachers embraced some of the characteristics of their cooperating teachers. Whereas, detrimental relationships caused the pre-service teachers to dismiss the practices of their cooperating teachers and the rejection of any performance feedback provided.

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This thesis is an autoethnographic investigation of interactions I have had with my students as a first-year art educator and the ways in which these interactions have led me to recall memories of my own experience as a student in art. Employing a metaphor of "teaching as mutual mark making," I present these interactions as "sketches," which refer to and reflect the ongoing and unfinished nature of memory and experience. My exploration of memory as it relates to teaching and learning has led me to advocate for art education based on relationships between teacher and student, as well as the relationship between the educator and his or her own learning experiences.

The purpose of this research was to inquire into the phenomenon of beginning teacher attrition, and more specifically, beginning physical education teacher attrition and retention. Utilizing the methodology of narrative inquiry, I first studied my own autobiographical stories that brought me to teaching. I then wove these stories into the current research around beginning teacher attrition and from this weaving, I began to look at beginning teacher attrition as a problem of identity shifting and shaping. This framing allowed me to narratively inquire into two beginning physical education teachers experiences. Looking at their experiences through this lens enabled me to become attentive to the experiences that sustained them as beginning teachers. Their sustaining experiences resonated closely with the stories that had brought them to teaching and the stories that had created their imagined stories of who they would be as teachers.

This study examined the narratives of three women music teachers’ professional practice, drawing on the research question: Through examining processes of subjectification: (a) How do mid-career women music teachers construct narratives of their professional and musical practice? (b) What are the implications for women music teachers’ professional and musical sustenance? Participants Hayley, Becky and Lynne, all with 12 years teaching experience, told stories of diverse musical participation within and beyond their schools and within a range of social groups and institutional settings. Taking a post-structural feminist theoretical perspective, these narratives were viewed as 'technologies of the female self' (Foucault, 1988; Tamboukou, 2008, 2010). The research question was shaped and answered through the concept of subjectifcation and considered how these women constructed a portrait of ‘self-in-practice.’ This questioned how they fashioned their personal pedagogical approach, how they created and projected a music departmental identity within the school, and how they conceptualised their musical and teaching selves. Data collection took place over a seven-month engagement with three participants and involved: a narrative/biographical interview; the compilation of a ‘memory box’ in which participants gathered artefacts related to the theme, ‘My music, my teaching’; and a follow-up conversational interview. In the final interview participants presented their artefacts and told stories related to their gendered experiences in music and teaching. Narratives showed the ‘woman music teacher’ is a site of struggle, where material roles within different discursive fields such as the home, the community as well as the school, pulled at other subjectivities. Through an analysis of processes of gendered subjectification, these women music teachers presented a complex narrative of their professional lives, within discursive fields of competing and complementary institutional discourses. While individually teachers conceptualised their musical and teaching subjectivities in personal, biographically-shaped ways, collectively they used similar discursive strategies to create a music subject department identity. They all told stories of their practice sustained by moments of ‘musical space’ and enabling others. Extra-curricular music provided valued moments of musical and aesthetic gratification and professional autonomy, functioning as a way to project the standing of the music subject department in the school and the local community, but this also added to an already burdensome workload. The education system in Northern Ireland is undergoing a prolonged yet stilted process of reform, and with the increase in the collaborative sharing of curriculum with other schools, it is likely that in the future secondary music teachers will be teaching in very different circumstances. This may be particularly challenging for established music teachers who have worked to create musical worlds in their subject departments drawing on personal and affective biographical resources. It is suggested that identity work with teachers’ narrative understandings of their self-in-practice, as a form of professional development, may allow space for teachers to imagine and negotiate alternative personal/professional identities, values and beliefs within new managerial and collaborative structures.