Abstract
This chapter addresses the question of teacher identity by focusing on the role that teachers’ identification with their subject disciplines plays in the formation of teachers’ identities. The chapter takes the starting point that teachers share a common pedagogical and moral imperative to teach children and young people about the subject that they have invested a considerable amount of time to learn themselves. All teachers, whether subject specialists or not, need to learn to acquire an ability to both understand the concepts that matter in a particular subject and the rules of evidence that are accepted within that discipline. It is the contention in this chapter that this conceptual understanding of what it means to teach a particular discipline in particular contexts that is central to the sociocultural identities of teachers. Although the chapter is concerned with the multiple subjects in schools and the identities of teachers of these subjects, it draws on examples from beginning teachers of English in particular as a subject as way of drawing attention to the contested nature of subject disciplines, school subjects, and subject teacher identity.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81, 132–169. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311404435
Ball, S. J., & Lacey, C. (2012). Subject disciplines as the opportunity for group action: A measured critique of subject sub-cultures. In P. Woods (Ed.), Teacher Strategies (pp. 149–177). Routledge.
Beach, K. (1999). Consequential transitions: A sociocultural expedition beyond transfer in education. Review of Research in Education, 24, 101–139. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X024001101
Beach, K. (2003). Consequential transitions: A developmental view of knowledge propagation through social organizations. In T. Tuomi-Gröhn & Y. Engeström (Eds.), Between school and work. New perspectives on transfer and boundary-crossing (pp. 29–61). Pergamon.
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.
Beijaard, D., Verloop, N., & Vermunt, J. D. (2000). Teachers’ perceptions of professional identity: An exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 749–764.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity theory: Research and critique (2nd ed.). Rowan & Littlefield Publishers.
Brooks, C. (2016). Teacher subject identity in professional practice: Teaching with a professional compass. Routledge.
Brooks, C. (2017). Pedagogy and identity in initial teacher education: Developing a ‘professional compass’. Geography, 102(1), 44–50.
Burn, K. (2007). Professional knowledge and identity in a contested discipline: Challenges for student teachers and teacher educators. Oxford Review of Education, 33(4), 445–467. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980701450886
Burn, K., Hagger, H., Mutton, T., & Everton, T. (2003). The complex development of student teachers’ thinking. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9(4), 309–331. https://doi.org/10.1080/1354060032000097235
Burn, K., Childs, A., & McNicholl, J. (2007). The potential and challenges for student teachers’ learning of subject-specific pedagogical knowledge within secondary school subject departments. The Curriculum Journal, 18(4), 429–445. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar].
Cole, M., & Engeström, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1–46). Cambridge University Press.
Côté, J. (2005). Identity capital, social capital and the wider benefits of learning: Generating resources facilitative of social cohesion. London Review of Education, 3(3), 221–237.
Crafter, S., & Maunder, R. (2012). Understanding transitions using a sociocultural framework. Educational and Child Psychology., 29(1), 10–18.
Darby, L. (2010a). Teacher identity in and across subjects (TIIAS) project: Summary of analysis. Final Report. Prepared for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria.
Darby, L. (2010b). Teacher identity in and across subjects (TIASS) project: Summary of analysis. Final Report. Prepared for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Victoria.
Department for Education. (2021). Schools, pupils and their characteristics: Academic year 2020–21. Department for Education.
Department for Education (DfE). (2022). School Workforce in England. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england
Derry, J. (2013). Vygotsky: Philosophy and education. Wiley Blackwell.
Doyle, W. (1979). Making managerial decisions in classrooms. In D. L. Duke (Ed.), Classroom management. 78th yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part 2. University of Chicago Press.
Doyle, W. (1983). Academic work. Review of Educational Research, 53, 159–199.
Doyle, W., & Carter, K. (1984). Academic tasks in classrooms. Curriculum Inquiry, 14, 129–149.
Dreier, O. (1999). Personal trajectories of participation across contexts of social practice. Outlines, 1(1), 5–32.
Dreier, O. (2009). Persons in structures of social practice. Theory and Psychology, 19(2), 193–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354309103539
Edwards, A. (2007). Relational agency in professional practice: A CHAT analysis. Actio: An International Journal of Human Activity Theory, 1, 1–17.
Edwards, A. (2009). From the systemic to the relational: Relational agency and activity theory. In A. Sannino, H. Daniels, & K. Gutierrez (Eds.), Learning and expanding with activity theory (pp. 197–211). Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, A. (2010). How can Vygotsky and his legacy help us to understand and develop teacher education? In V. Ellis, A. Edwards, & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Cultural-historical perspectives on teacher education and development (pp. 63–77). Routledge.
Edwards, A. (2015). Designing tasks which engage learners with knowledge. In I. Thompson (Ed.), Designing tasks in secondary education (pp. 13–27). London: Routledge.
Edwards, A. (2017). The dialectic of person and practice: How cultural-historical accounts of agency can inform teacher education. In J. Clandinin & J. Husu (Eds.), International handbook on research on teacher education (pp.269-285). Sage.
Egan, K. (2005). An imaginative approach to teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ellis, V. (2007a). Taking subject knowledge seriously: From professional knowledge recipes to complex conceptualizations of teacher development. Curriculum Journal, 18(4), 458–459. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585170701687902
Ellis, V. (2007b). Subject knowledge and teacher education: The development of beginning teachers’ thinking. Continuum.
Engeström, Y. (2010). Activity theory as a framework for analyzing and redesigning work. Ergonomics, 43(7), 960–974. https://doi.org/10.1080/001401300409143
Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Educational Research Review, 5(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2009.12.002
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.
Grootenboer, P., & Ballantyne, J, (2010). Mathematics teachers: Negotiating professional and discipline identities. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (33rd, Freemantle, Western Australia, Jul 3–7, 2010.
Hammerness, K., Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005). How teachers learn and develop. In L. Darling-Hammond & J. Bransford (Eds.), Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 358–389). Jossey-Bass.
Hobbs, L. (2013). Teaching ‘out-of-filed’ as a boundary crossing event: Factors shaping teacher identity. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 11, 271–297.
Hochstetler, S. (2011). Focus on identity development: A proposal for addressing English teacher attrition. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 84(6), 256–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/00098655.2011.590552
Holland, D., & Lachicotte, W. (2007). Vygotsky, Mead and the new sociocultural studies of identity. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 101–135).
Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Harvard University Press.
McIntyre, D. (1993). Theory, theorizing and reflection in initial teacher education. In J. Calderhead & P. Gates (Eds.), Conceptualizing reflection in teacher development (pp. 97–114). Falmer Press.
McIntyre, J., & Hobson, A. J. (2016). Supporting beginner teacher identity development: External mentors and the third space. Research Papers in Education, 31(2), 133–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2015.1015438
Mercer, N. (2000). Words and minds: How we use language to think together. London: Routledge.
Mockler, N. (2011). Beyond ‘what works’: Understanding teacher identity as a practical and political tool. Teachers and Teaching, 17(5), 517–528. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.602059
Moll, L. C., & Arnot-Hopffer, E. (2005). Sociocultural competence in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 56(3), 242–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487105275919
Morris, J. E., & Imms, W. (2021). ‘A validation of my pedagogy’: How subject discipline practice supports early career teachers’ identities and perceptions of retention. Teacher Development, 25(4), 465–477.
Penuel, W. R., & Wertsch, V. J. (1995). Vygotsky and identity formation: A sociocultural approach. Educational Psychologist, 30(2), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3002_5
Popper-Giveon, A., & Shayshon, B. (2017). Educator versus subject matter teacher: The conflict between two sub-identities in becoming a teacher. Teachers and Teaching, 23(5), 532–548.
Saka, Y., Southerland, S. A., Kittleson, J., & Hutner, T. (2013). Understanding the induction of a science teacher: The interaction of identity and context. Research in Science Education, 43, 1221–1244.
Schwab, J. J. (1978). Science, curriculum and liberal education: Selected essays (I. Westbury & N. Wilkof, Eds.). University of Chicago Press.
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4–14.
Tatto, M., Burn, K., Menter, I., Mutton, T., & Thompson, I. (2018). Learning to teach in England and the United States: The evolution of policy and practice. Routledge.
Thompson, I. (2015). Communication, culture and conceptual learning: Task design in the English classroom. In I. Thompson (Ed.), Designing tasks in secondary education: Enhancing subject understanding and student engagement (pp. 86–106). Routledge.
Thompson, I. (2020). Poverty and education in England: A school system in crisis. In I. Thompson & G. Ivinson (Eds.), Poverty in education across the UK: A comparative analysis of policy and place (pp. 115–140). Policy Press.
Thompson, I., & Wittek, A. L. (2016). Writing as a mediational tool for learning in the collaborative composition of texts. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 11, 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2016.05.004
Thompson, I., McNicholl, J., & Menter, I. (2016). Student teachers’ perceptions of poverty and educational achievement. Oxford Review of Education, 42(2), 214–229. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2016.1164130
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 1, pp. 37–285). Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1997). The history of the development of higher mental functions. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 4, pp. 1–254). Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1998). Problems of child psychology. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky (Vol. 5, pp. 185–296). Plenum Press.
Zittoun, T. (2006). Transitions: Development through symbolic resources. Information Age Publishing.
Zittoun, T. (2007). Symbolic resources and responsibility in transitions. Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 15(2), 193–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/110330880701500205
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Thompson, I. (2023). Subject Disciplines and the Construction of Teachers’ Identities. In: Menter, I. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16193-3_78
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16193-3_78
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-16192-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-16193-3
eBook Packages: EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education