Professional mathematics teacher identity: analysis of reflective narratives from discourses and activities

Abstract

This article focuses on the methodological use of reflective narratives from discourses and activities of an experienced primary teacher as evidence of her professional identity. The teacher's reflective narratives emerge from her participation in a 3-year developmental and research project, Learning Communities in Mathematics, conducted at the University of Agder (UiA) in Norway. As background for our study, we firstly present the teacher in action with her sixth-grade pupils in a mathematics lesson, and then analyse selected clusters of reflective narratives from different empirical situations in the project. We have identified four identity indicators, which have been elaborated and organised thematically, related to the teacher's engagement and critical alignment in the community of participants: (1) Positioning in relation to pupils, (2) Reflecting on developing a workshop model in teaching, (3) Integrating and expanding models of teaching and (4) Challenging positioning in relation to didacticians. These indicators provide evidence of the teacher's professional identity. We suggest that the emergence of these indicators also gives empirical evidence of professional teacher identity development.Keywords Professional mathematics teacher identity Á Social theory of learning Á Narrative approach Á Reflective narrative Á Identity indicator In recent years, identity has received the attention of researchers from a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches in social and human sciences. The growing

Developing an analytic lens for investigating identity as an embedder-of-numeracy

“…Williams (2011) investigated how teachers draw on their past experiences (life histories) to develop role models that shape their identity. Other researchers have reported on how confidence (Graven 2004), emotion (Beauchamp and Thomas 2009), motivation (Gresalfi and Cobb 2012) and critical reflection (Beauchamp and Thomas 2009;Bjuland et al 2012;de Freitas 2008;Goodnough 2011) influence teacher identity. These, and the numerous other factors that influence teacher identity, do not act in isolation but are intimately connected; for example, lack of pedagogical content knowledge can influence confidence (Hobbs 2012) and professional learning can provide opportunities for increased critical reflection and confidence (Goodnough 2011).…”

Primary School Teachers’ Image of a Mathematics Teacher

“…Research on teachers' professional identity formation has expanded in recent years with the mutual goal to better understand and support the needs of teachers, including student teachers (Beijaard, Meijer & Verloop, 2004;Bjuland, Luiza Cestari & Borgersen 2012;Ponte & Chapman, 2008). The results presented in this paper derive from a longitudinal case study of seven novice primary school mathematics teachers' professional identity development (Palmér, 2013).…”

Teacher identity as an embedder-of-numeracy: identifying ways to support teachers to promote numeracy learning across the curriculum

“…Thus, it could be argued that these factors, along with critical reflection, which is part of the action research process (McAteer, 2013), contributed to the development of the teachers' identities. The importance of critical reflection in shaping teacher identities was also evident in studies conducted by de Freitas (2008) and Bjuland et al, (2012). De Freitas used a narrative approach to investigate pre-service teachers' identity construction in relation to social justice issues, while Bjuland et al used reflective narratives as evidence of the teacher identity of a primary school teacher during a three-year research and development project.…”

“…However, this view contrasts with that of Sfard and Prusak (2005) who, while agreeing with Wenger that identities originate in practice, claimed that identity involves how these practices are seen and talked about rather than actual engagement in the practice. The narrative approach taken by Sfard and Prusak has shown promise in their research and that of others (e.g., Bjuland, Cestari, & Borgersen, 2012;Graven & Buytenhuys, 2011) and has similarities with the views of Wenger and Gee. However, teacher participation in practices which promote numeracy learning was an important aspect of the research reported on in this thesis, and so the conceptualisation of identity used in the present study is aligned with that of Wenger.…”

“…Research on teacher identity has involved both pre-service (e.g., de Freitas, 2008) and practicing teachers (e.g., Goodnough, 2011) and has been conducted from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. Philosophical stances have included sociocultural (e.g., Enyedy et al, 2005;Lasky, 2005), phenomenological (e.g., Goodnough, 2011) and poststructuralist (Walshaw, 2010) perspectives while methodological approaches have included narrative inquiry (e.g., Bjuland et al, 2012), ethnography (e.g., Graven, 2004;Graven & Buytenhuys, 2011), and action research (e.g., de Freitas, 2008;Goodnough, 2011).…”