Professional identity

Draft

Definition

• Identity “represents the process by which the person seeks to integrate his (sic) various statuses and roles, as well as his diverse experiences, into a coherent image of self”. (Epstein, 1978, p. 101)

See also: Entries related to knowledge community building, e.g. community of practice, situated learning, shared experience, community of learning, participatory learning environment,socio-culturalism, ...

See also: Online identity

Theoretical frameworks

Lave/Wenger

Wenger defines identity as what we know, what is foreign and what we choose to know, as well as how we know it. Our identies determine with whom we will interact in a knowledge sharing activity, and our willingness and capacity to engage in boundary interactions (Wenger 2000, p.239)

Participation constitutes identity construction, it will include dimensions of mutual engagement, a joint enterprise and a shared repertoire. (James).

• Connectedness is built upon shared histories, experiences, reciprocity, affections and mutual commitment.
• Expansiveness allows an individual to belong to multiple communities of practice and easily engage in boundary interactions.
• Effectiveness enables inclusive social participation.

Wenger identifies identity as engagement in the world, but people have multiple sources of identity and ways of connecting. Affiliation to an organization (e.g. being a teacher or a dental care assistant trainee) is not enough to constitute identity. It's the experience as professionals engaged in learning and knowledge creation, i.e. to be able to interact with all kinds of situations and people. Membership of a learning community ought to be transformative.

Professional identity in education

Teacher's identity

Teachers' professional identity implies both a cognitive psychological and a sociological perspective: people develop their identity in interaction with other people (sociological perspective), but express their professional identity in their perceptions of 'who they are' and 'who they want to become' as a result of this interaction (cognitive psychological perspective). (Bejaard, 2006).

Sachs (1999) identifies 2 kinds of distinct identities: (1) the entrepreneurial identity and (2) the activist identity. “The managerialist discourse gives rise to an entrepreneurial identity in which the market and issues of accountability, economy, efficiency and effectiveness shape how teachers individually and collectively construct their professional identities. Democratic discourses, which are in distinct contrast to the managerialist ones give rise to an activist professional identity in which collaborative cultures are an integral part of teachers' work practices”

Identity in initial vocational training

Wenger's identity concept may be a key element to think about integration of workplace and school learning. Learners should be able to merge identity as a learner in school, as a learner in the workplace and as a practitionner in the workplace. Furthermore, most jobs have different facets that can be described as different roles. E.g. a teacher must learn to integrate his role as information provider, orchestrator, monitor, tutor and member of a bureaucratic organization. E.g. a dental care assistant must provide assistance to dental surgery, manage patients, do some office work, clean surgery tools, etc. Both must learn to develop his/her identity with respect to all expected roles.

References

• Beijaard, Douwe (2006), Dilemmas and conflicting constraints in teachers' professional identity development, EARLI SIG Professional Learning and Development Conference.

• Epstein, A. (1978) Ethos and Identity, Tavistock, London

• Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self Identity, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

• Goodson, I. & Cole, A. (1994) Exploring the teacher's professional knowledge: Constructing identity and community, Teacher Education Quarterly, 21 (1), 85-105.

• Henson, A., Koivu-Rybicki, V., Madigan, D. & Muchmore, J.A. (2000) Researching teaching through collaborative inquiry with outside researchers, in A. Cole and J.G. Knowles (Eds.) Researching teaching: Exploring teacher development through reflexive inquiry, Boston, MA: Allwyn and Bacon.

• Kahan, Seth (2004), Engagement, Identity, and Innovation: Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice. Journal of association leadership HTML.

• Kogan, M. (2000) Higher education communities and academic identity, Higher Education Quarterly, 54 (3): 207-216

• James, Nalita, The Importance of the Professional Identity in higher education, PDF. (Could not find the reference for this paper .... the initial bibliography is taken from it).

• Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

• Maclure, M. (1993) Arguing for your self: Identity as an organising principle in teachers' jobs and lives, British Educational Research Journal, 19 (4), 311-322.

• Malcolm, J. and Zukas, M. (2000) Becoming an educator: Communities of practice in higher education, in I. McNay (ed.) Higher Education and its Communities, Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

• Nixon, J. (1996) Professional identity and the restructuring of higher education, Studies in Higher Education, 21 (1): 5-16.

• Russell, T. & Bullock, S. (1999) Discovering our professional knowledge as teachers: Critical dialogues about learning from experience, in J. Loughran (Ed.) Researching teaching methodologies and practices for understanding pedagogy, New York: The Falmer Press

• Sachs, J. (1999) Teacher professional identity: Competing discourses, competing outcomes. Paper presented at the Australian Association of Research in Education Conference, Melbourne, November. HTML

• Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

• Wenger, Etienne. (2000), Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems, Organization, Volume 7(2): 225-246