Keywords
complex dynamic systems
dialogical self
practicum learning
How to Cite
Number of views: 971
Number of downloads: 697
Abstract
Identity is of increasing interest in teacher education. Crucial for resilience, the development of a coherent professional identity has been characterized as emerging from tensions between multiple and sometimes conflicting conceptions of what it means to be someone who teaches (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011). While light is being shed on these often antagonistic relations, less is known about the dynamics of identity formation and transformation. Providing a contribution to work on language teacher identity, in this single case study Hermans’ (2008) concept of the dialogical self is combined with complexity principles in an investigation of changes in the emerging professional identity of a pre-service English teacher during a practicum. Drawing on intra- and inter-personal data, experiences of learning to become a person who teaches English are conceptualized as a drama that is played out between different and sometimes unaligned selves. Analyses show how this inner drama maps onto the landscape of an emerging teacher identity, how tensions can be understood systemically, and how a teacher identity system can have a signature dynamic.
Funding
The anonymous reviewers of this article
the reviewers of a previous article in Journal of Teacher Education
Bo Svensson
Tammy Gregersen
“Sara” and her preservice colleague “Lina”
References
Akkerman, S. F., & Meijer, P. C. (2011). A dialogical approach to conceptualizing teacher identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 308-319.
Alsup, J. (2006). Teacher identity discourses. Negotiating personal and professional spaces. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(2), 175-189.
Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2011). New teachers’ identity shifts at the boundary of teacher education and initial practice. International Journal of Educational Research, 50, 6-13.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107-128.
Bell, N. J., & Das, A. (2011). Emergent organization in the dialogical self: Evolution of a ‘‘both’’ ethnic identity position. Culture & Psychology, 17(2), 241-262.
Bento, T., Cunha, C., & Salgado, J. (2012). Dialogical theory of selfhood. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 421-438). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bloomfield, D. (2010). Emotions and “getting by”: A preservice teacher navigating professional experience. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 38, 221-234.
Britzman, D. P. (2006). Foreword. In J. Alsup (Ed.), Teacher identity discourses: Negotiating personal and professional spaces (pp. ix-xii). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2014). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Abingdon: Routledge.
Chu, S. K. W., Kwan, A. C. M., & Warning, P. (2012). Blogging for information management, learning, and social support during internship. Educational Technology & Society, 15(2), 168-178.
Coyle, A. (2006). Discourse analysis. In G. M. Breakwell, S. Hammond, C. Fife-Schaw, & J. A. Smith (Eds.), Research methods in psychology (pp. 366-387). London: Sage.
Deng, L., & Yuen, A. H. K. (2013). Forums in preservice teacher education: Exploring the participation issue. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22(3), 339-356.
Dörnyei, Z. (2014). Researching complex dynamic systems: “Retrodictive qualitative modelling” in the language classroom. Language Teaching, 47(1), 80-91.
Duarte, F., & Gonçalves, M. M. (2007). Negotiating motherhood: A dialogical approach. International Journal for Dialogical Science, 2, 249-275.
Ferrier-Kerr, J. (2009). Establishing professional relationships in practicum settings. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 790-797.
Geijsel, F., & Meijers, F. (2005). Identity learning: The core process of educational change. Educational Studies, 31(4), 419-430.
Henry, A. (2016). Conceptualizing teacher identity as a complex dynamic system: The inner dynamics of transformations during a practicum. Journal of Teacher Education, 67(4), 291-305.
Henry, A. (2019). Working with identity work: Supporting the exploration of professional identity development in teacher education. Manuscript in preparation.
Henry, A., & Tynkkinen, M. (2017). Becoming a process researcher of one’s own development: Using an identity mapping model to make sense of transformation dynamics during the practicum. In T. Gregersen & P. D. MacIntyre (Eds.), Exploring innovations in language teacher education: Transformational theory and practice (pp. 205-228). New York: Springer.
Hermans, H. J. M. (1996). Voicing the self: From information processing to dialogical interchange. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 31-50.
Hermans, H. J. M. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture & Psychology, 7(3), 243-281.
Hermans, H. J. M. (2003). The construction and reconstruction of a dialogical self. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 16(2), 89-130.
Hermans, H. J. M. (2008). How to perform research on the basis of dialogical self theory? Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 21(3), 185-199.
Hermans, H. J. M., Kempen, H. J. G., & Van Loon, R. J. P. (1992). The dialogical self: Beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist, 47, 23-33.
Hiver, P. (2017). Tracing the signature dynamics of language teacher immunity: A retrodictive qualitative modeling study, Modern Language Journal, 101, 669-690.
Hiver, P., & Al-Hoorie, A. H. (2016). A “dynamic ensemble” for second language research: Putting complexity theory into practice. Modern Language Journal, 100, 741-756.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). London: Macmillan.
Jasper, C., Moore, H., Whittaker, L., & Gillespie, A. (2012). Methodological approaches to studying the self in its social context. In H. Hermans & T. Gieser (Eds.), Handbook of dialogical self theory (pp. 319-334). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnston, B. (1997). Do EFL teachers have careers? TESOL Quarterly, 31(4), 681-712.
Kaplan, A., & Garner, J. K. (2017). A complex dynamic systems perspective on identity and its development: The dynamic systems model of role identity. Developmental Psychology, 53(11), 2036-2051.
Kaplan, A., & Garner, J. K. (2018). Teacher identity and motivation: The dynamic systems model of role identity. In P. A. Schutz., J. Hong, & D. Cross Francis (Eds.), Research on teacher identity: Mapping challenges and innovations (pp. 71-82). New York: Springer.
Klimstra, T. A., Luyckx, K., Hale, W. W., Frijns, T., van Lier, P., & Meeus, W. H. J. (2010). Short-term fluctuations in identity: Introducing a micro-level approach to identity formation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(1), 191-202.
Kostoulas, A., Stelma, J., Mercer, S., Cameron, L., & Dawson, S. (2017). Complex systems theory as a shared discourse space for TESOL. TESOL Journal. Advance online publication.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2017). Complexity theory: The lessons continue. In L. Ortega & Z. Han (Eds.), Complexity theory and language development: In celebration of Diane Larsen-Freeman (pp. 12-50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, M. D., & Ferrari, M. (2000). Cognitive-emotional self-organization in personality development and personal identity. In H. A. Bosma & E. S. Kunnen (Eds.), Identity and emotion: Development through self-organization (pp. 177-198). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MacIntryre, P. D., & Serroul, A. (2015). Motivation on a per-second timescale: Examining approach-avoidance motivation during L2 task performance. In Z. Dörnyei, P. D. MacIntyre, & A. Henry (Eds.), Motivational dynamics in language learning (pp. 109-138). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Markus, H. R., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954-969.
McAdams, D. P. (1985). The “imago”: A key narrative component of identity. In P. Shaver (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (pp. 115-141). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Miller, J. (2009). Teacher identity. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to second language teacher education (pp. 172-181). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nowak, A., Vallacher, R., & Zochowski, M. (2005). The emergence of personality: Dynamic foundations of individual variation. Developmental Review, 25, 351-385.
Ortega, L., & Han, Z. (2017). Complexity theory and language development: In celebration of Diane Larsen-Freeman. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pillen, M. T., den Brok, P. J., & Beijaard, D. (2013). Profiles and change in beginning teachers’ professional identity tensions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 34, 86-97.
Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1995). Discourse analysis. In J. Smith, R. Harré, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking methods in psychology (pp. 80-92). London: Sage.
Rodgers, C. R., & Scott, K. H. (2008). The development of the personal self and professional identity in learning to teach. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. J. McIntyre & K. E. Demers (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 732-755). New York: Routledge.
Smagorinsky, P., Cook, L. S., Moore, C., Jackson, A. Y., & Fry, P. G. (2004). Tensions in learning to teach: Accommodation and the development of a teaching identity. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(1), 8-24.
Sutherland, L., Howard, S., & Markauskaite, L. (2010). Professional identity creation: Examining the development of beginning preservice teachers’ understanding of their work as teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 455-465.
Trent, J. (2011). “Four years on, I’m ready to teach”: Teacher education and the construction of teacher identities. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 17(5), 529-543.
Trent, J. (2013). From learner to teacher: Practice, language, and identity in a teaching practicum. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 41(4), 426-440.
Vallacher, R. R., van Geert, P., & Nowak, A. (2015). The intrinsic dynamics of psychological process. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 58-64.
Valsiner, J. (2004, August). Temporal integration of structures within the dialogical self. Keynote lecture at the 3rd International Conference on Dialogical Self, Warsaw, Poland.
van Geert, P., & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A. (2005). A dynamic systems approach to family assessment. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21(4), 240-248.
Verspoor, M. (2015). Initial conditions. In Z. Dörnyei, P. D. MacIntyre, & A. Henry (Eds.), Motivational dynamics in language learning (pp. 38-46). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Walkington, J. (2005). Becoming a teacher: Encouraging development of teacher identity through reflective practice. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(1), 53-64.
License
1.1 The Author hereby warrants that he/she is the owner of all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in the Work and that, within the scope of the present Agreement, the paper does not infringe the legal rights of another person. The owner of the copyright work also warrants that he/she is the sole and original creator thereof and that is not bound by any legal constraints in regard to the use or sale of the work.
1.2. The Publisher warrants that is the owner of the PRESSto platform for open access journals, hereinafter referred to as the PRESSto Platform.
2. The Author grants the Publisher non-exclusive and free of charge license to unlimited use worldwide over an unspecified period of time in the following areas of exploitation:
2.1. production of multiple copies of the Work produced according to the specific application of a given technology, including printing, reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means (reprography) and digital technology;
2.2. marketing authorisation, loan or lease of the original or copies thereof;
2.3. public performance, public performance in the broadcast, video screening, media enhancements as well as broadcasting and rebroadcasting, made available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them;
2.4. inclusion of the Work into a collective work (i.e. with a number of contributions);
2.5. inclusion of the Work in the electronic version to be offered on an electronic platform, or any other conceivable introduction of the Work in its electronic version to the Internet;
2.6. dissemination of electronic versions of the Work in its electronic version online, in a collective work or independently;
2.7. making the Work in the electronic version available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, in particular by making it accessible via the Internet, Intranet, Extranet;
2.8. making the Work available according to appropriate license pattern Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) as well as another language version of this license or any later version published by Creative Commons.
3. The Author grants the Publisher permission to reproduce a single copy (print or download) and royalty-free use and disposal of rights to compilations of the Work and these compilations.
4. The Author grants the Publisher permission to send metadata files related to the Work, including to commercial and non-commercial journal-indexing databases.
5. The Author represents that, on the basis of the license granted in the present Agreement, the Publisher is entitled and obliged to:
5.1. allow third parties to obtain further licenses (sublicenses) to the Work and to other materials, including derivatives thereof or compilations made, based on or including the Work, whereas the provisions of such sub-licenses will be the same as with the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons sub-license or another language version of this license, or any later version of this license published by Creative Commons;
5.2. make the Work available to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the Work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them, without any technological constraints;
5.3. appropriately inform members of the public to whom the Work is to be made available about sublicenses in such a way as to ensure that all parties are properly informed (appropriate informing messages).
6. Because of the royalty-free provision of services of the Author (resulting from the scope of obligations stipulated in the present Agreement), the Author shall not be entitled to any author’s fee due and payable on the part of the Publisher (no fee or royalty is payable by the Publisher to the Author).
7.1. In the case of third party claims or actions for indemnity against the Publisher owing to any infractions related to any form of infringement of intellectual property rights protection, including copyright infringements, the Author is obliged to take all possible measures necessary to protect against these claims and, when as a result of legal action, the Publisher, or any third party licensed by the Publisher to use the Work, will have to abandon using the Work in its entirety or in part or, following a court ruling in a legal challenge, to pay damages to a third party, whatever the legal basis
7.2. The Author will immediately inform the Publisher about any damage claims related to intellectual property infringements, including the author’s proprietary rights pertaining to a copyrighted work, filed against the Author. of liability, the Author is obliged to redress the damage resulting from claims made by third party, including costs and expenditures incurred in the process.
7.3. To all matters not settled herein provisions of the Polish Civil Code and the Polish Copyright and Related Rights Act shall apply.