The construction of teachers’ professional identity: An analysis of subjective learning experiences

Abstract

This article explores the construction of teachers’ professional identity through analysis of subjective learning experiences. In order to report on the progress of our work, we present a discourse analysis of three experiences considered to be of particular relevance by a final-year pedagogy student. The analysis yielded four important conclusions: i) The process of teachers’ professional identity construction is based on comparing and contrasting different experiences and culminates in the construction of new identity positions; ii) this process must involve experiences that call into question existing meanings of self; iii) future teachers must engage in productive dialogue with other significant actors in order to identify and recognise the value of certain positional objects; and iv) certain subjective learning experiences have a greater impact on the reconstruction of identity positions. Finally, we propose an analysis model based on subjective learning experiences for the construction of teachers’ professional identity.