Becoming a social studies teacher: An integrative systems perspective on identity content, structure, and processes

Patterson, Timothy; Bridgelal, Ishwar; Kaplan, Avi

doi:10.1016/j.tate.2022.103899

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…This finding hints at the unique and invaluable insights into the material and cultural rules of classmaking that teachers from lower-income backgrounds bring when combating economic inequality in schools. In a comprehensive review of 114 studies on the identity of social studies teachers, including race, gender, and sexuality, none of the categories developed by Patterson et al (2022) included an examination of teachers' classed backgrounds-an absence addressed in an article on how the teachers in this study narrated their own childhood experiences with social class and the links to their hopes for addressing economic inequality as it appears in their classrooms (Sonu, 2023).…”

Section: Discussion and Concluding Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking Light on Economic Divide: How Elementary School Teachers Locate Class Inequality in Teaching and Schools

Sonu

Zaino

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: Macro-analyses have documented the raced and classed consequences of rampant economic inequality in schools and society. However, in educational research, there remain clear gaps in understanding how schoolteachers, especially those working with children, locate the appearances of economic inequality in their teaching and how they make sense of the social conditions that create such disparities. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Key to understanding how economic inequality matters in the classroom is acknowledging teachers as critical to disrupting classist relations, cultivating critical awareness, and advocating on behalf of and in solidarity with those who face the brunt of ongoing systems of racial capitalism and coloniality. Equally critical is how the role of teaching can challenge the neoliberal belief that market principles are the best and only way to shape the impending future. To that end, the purpose of this project was to analyze the process of elementary school teachers in New York City as they materialize a more robust understanding of class formation as a part of lived experience and to advance new possibilities for harnessing the teaching of economics as a means toward racial and social justice. Research Design: As part of this larger project, we asked 57 New York City teachers in grades 1–5 to share responses to Likert and open-ended questions, and analyzed a subset of data along two primary lines of inquiry: In what ways does social class appear in your classroom? Describe a moment in your classroom or school when social class mattered. Through a constructivist grounded analysis, we surfaced four overlapping locations: (1) disparities in material possessions and access among students; (2) tensions between teachers, parents, and families; (3) inequalities built into school-based structures and practices; and (4) teachers’ own subjective histories with social class. Conclusions/Recommendations: Given the dearth of scholarship in this area, particularly at the elementary level, we argue for greater attention to the experiences of teachers as they work within institutions marred by racial capitalist society. Elementary school teachers are keenly aware of how material infrastructures and the extraction of value in and through education present grave inequalities for their students and families. They express genuine interest in deepening their understanding of economic inequality and for spaces to explore ways in which they can respond to the everyday events they shared in this study.

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Section: Discussion and Concluding Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Breaking Light on Economic Divide: How Elementary School Teachers Locate Class Inequality in Teaching and Schools

Sonu

Zaino

2023

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…Such work resonates with an important takeaway from Goodson's (1992) exploration of teachers' biographies, which shows us that encapsulated within teachers' practice is their life history and sense of self, and this infuses into the subjects they teach. However, in addition to being underexplored (Rushton et al, 2023), Patterson et al (2022) also point out that research on teacher identity has not yielded a sense of coherence in a subject like social science, and it has a diminished contribution in the field of teacher subject identity research.…”

Section: Subjects and Teacher Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of social science as a K-12 subject, much of the work in the last two decades related to teacher identity has emanated from the US and European contexts, where the primary themes have centred largely around their perceptions on civic education in the curriculum (for instance, see Patterson et al, 2022). Far less attention has been paid to teachers’ construction of professional identity related to their perceptions, impetus, and self-image as a teacher of the subject.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Social Science Teacher? Anyone Can Become’: Examining Professional Subject Identity of Social Science Teachers in India

Subramanian

2024

Contemporary Education Dialogue

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Teacher identity can serve as an important lens to examine the way teachers traverse the various demands made of them by policymakers and stakeholders in the school system, with their own perspectives of self and their work. Official narratives and curriculum documents lead to the construction of a public identity and what it means to be a ‘good teacher’ in a broad and generic sense. However, much less attention is paid to teachers’ biographical accounts of their professional identity, from a stance as practitioners of a specific subject, and their lived experiences, thereof. This article reports on a qualitative study undertaken as a pilot project for a doctoral dissertation, where six social science teachers from Mumbai and Bangalore, participated in three online focus group discussions. The framework used to analyse the data is Goffman’s dramaturgical theory of impression management. Findings reveal that social science teachers present their professional identity using reified expressions of competence, idealise social science as a subject, and seek validation of their status as teachers of a nonutility subject. These are discussed in the context of recently proposed educational reforms in India, with the recommendation that policymakers must take cognizance of this fragile sense of subject identity and an acute sense of disempowerment facing social science teachers, who are not averse to accountability measures per se, to enhance their standing.

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Exploring teachers’ inclination towards adopting inquiry-based learning in social studies: Insights from teacher professional identity

Lu,

Obenchain,

Zhang

2024

Teaching and Teacher Education

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Becoming a social studies teacher: An integrative systems perspective on identity content, structure, and processes

Cited by 5 publications

References 109 publications

Breaking Light on Economic Divide: How Elementary School Teachers Locate Class Inequality in Teaching and Schools

Breaking Light on Economic Divide: How Elementary School Teachers Locate Class Inequality in Teaching and Schools

‘Social Science Teacher? Anyone Can Become’: Examining Professional Subject Identity of Social Science Teachers in India

Exploring teachers’ inclination towards adopting inquiry-based learning in social studies: Insights from teacher professional identity

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