Discourse and teacher identity in business-like education

Abstract

A post-structural approach to exploring identity is taken in this paper in that identity is considered here as being socially constructed through discourse, which has deep implications for the shaping of subjectivity and practice. Given both the potential academisation and Anglicisation of Irish schools, and the additional re-drawing of what constitutes as a ‘good teacher’, repositioning Irish teachers’ subjectifications, this paper highlights the important issue of how teachers (re-)construct themselves in particular ways and make sense of their professional selves when their personal values, motivations, principles and deeply held beliefs about education and how it should be experienced are challenged. Ultimately, this paper projects that adopting a business-like ethos in Irish schools will have a negative impact on Irish teachers’ identities.

Teachers, performative techniques and professional values: how performativity becomes humanistic through interplay mechanisms

“…Following this, and again, some researchers have even begun to talk about the 'postperformative' era (Holloway, 2019;Holloway & Brass, 2018;Skerritt, 2019;Wilkins, 2011), claiming that the constant use of and exposition to mainly quantitative techniques have enabled internalisation of performativity. In fact, within some school contexts, a gradual normalisation of performativity seems to have taken place (Holloway, 2019;Lewis & Holloway, 2019;Priestley et al, 2012;Skerritt, 2019;Wilkins, 2011).…”

“…There is a large and burgeoning literature on the effects of neo-liberally inspired educational reforms around the world (see e.g. Ab Kadir, 2017;Holloway & Brass, 2018;Mather & Seifert, 2011;Page, 2015Page, , 2017Perryman, 2006Perryman, , 2009Skerritt, 2019;Troman, Jeffrey, & Raggl, 2007;Wilkins, 2015). Such reforms typically operate through the ideology of performativity (Lyotard, 1984;cf.…”

“…Such reforms typically operate through the ideology of performativity (Lyotard, 1984;cf. Munday, 2014;White, 2006;Wilson & Holligan, 2013), whereby the teaching profession is reshaped and normalised in line with standardised expectations formed by ideological preferences for and definitions of achievements (Jeffrey & Troman, 2011;Perryman, 2006Perryman, , 2009Skerritt, 2019): a form of reshaping and normalisation that is typically brought about by means of performative techniques, such as key performance indicators, rankings and evaluations. The premise is that such techniques translate the performances of individuals and schools into a set of formal recordstypically numerical ones (e.g.…”

“…Recently though, a small but growing literature has started to explore the idea that the teachers of today may no longer perceive performative techniques as having such marked negative effects. Increasingly, in a 'post-performative' era, professional teachers no longer conceive of performativity as threatening or de-professionalising, but rather as a largely normalised and naturalised part of what it means to be a professional teacher (Holloway, 2019;Holloway & Brass, 2018;Lewis & Holloway, 2019;Skerritt, 2019;Wilkins, 2011).…”

Identity-oriented English Language Teachers’ Education Programs as the Arena of Becoming a Glocal English Language Teacher

“…Due to the complex nature of teacher's identity development (Pupala, Kascak and Tesar, 2016), the realm of teacher's identity research has witnessed a flourishing development in doing research by scholars (Meihami and Salīte, 2019;Rashidi and Meihami, 2017). Moreover, different movements in educational settings of different countries and the relationships existing between the local and global educational contexts (Skerritt, 2018) make the educational researchers exercise more emphasis on the teacher's identity development research. Furthermore, because of the identity is not a fixed attribute of human being (Rashidi and Meihami, 2019;Vargehese, Morgan, Johnston and Johnson, 2005), the change in the educational contexts will lead to its change, which in its own way is a reason for the keen enthusiasm of the researchers in doing teacher's identity development research.…”