Emily's reflections and questions

Dear colleagues,

I am very glad that Nicol reminded me of this blog where we can actually share ideas and discuss something we are still unsure of. Here, I would like to summarize the ideas of my presentation on last week’s conference and also to ask for your kind suggestions for the points which I am still not clear about.

I introduced a topic about EFL Pre-service Teacher Identity Formation in School-University Partnership in mainland China. Using the case of Kelly as an example, I focused on two research questions:
 What are the main factors that affect preservice teacher identities? How do they affect preservice teacher identities?
 How do/are discourses of learning to teach in school-university partnership shape/shaped by preservice teacher identities?
I attempted to address the research questions from both the sociocultural and the poststructuralist perspective. I drew on the Activity Theory (Engestrom, 2001) to conceptualize the school-university partnership context which was related to the boundary crossing of the two institutional activity systems. I also adopted Wenger’s (1998) theory of community of practice to illustrate the identity formation process of the student teachers during their learning to teacher practice in the community of practice. Informed by Baron and Tusting (2005), I also approach the research questions from the poststructuralist perspective as it is argued that it should be more enlightening to complement the theory of COP which emphasizes on the relationship between identity and practice with the theory of discourse which provides a broader angle for exploring the relationship between identity and language as well as the impact of social structure and various tensions. I borrowed Clarke’s (2009) diagram of doing “identity work” as the analytical framework which was established based on Foucault’s (1983,1985) four aspects of self formation.

After analyzing the data of Kelly according to Clarke’s framework, I had a question which I would like to ask for your suggestions here. Are the four axes of teacher identity stable aspects that last for his/her entire career life ever since they have been implanted or are they subject to changes or revisions under different conditions during the process of the teacher’s professional development? In Clarke’s article, the substance (core) of teacher identity is the key axis regarding how the other aspects are related to one’s being a teacher, in this sense, does it mean that the four axes are not paralleled but mutually affected?

Frankly speaking, I find myself still not very clear about the framework even though I tried to analyze Kelly’s data from the four axes. Therefore, I am eager to listen to more ideas from you about Clarke’s framework and about other research aspects.^-^ 

Best wishes,

Emily