Professional identity

This chapter discusses the concept of professional identity and how professional teachers develop their identity. Policy contexts as well as research contexts are discussed in terms of how these shape professional working conditions

Responding to imposed job redesign : the evolving dynamics of work and identity in restructuring professional identity

Professionals are increasingly prevalent in organizations and are required to change their professional practice in response to requirements from employers. It is therefore important to understand how professionals respond when they are required to conduct work that does not match with their identity. We investigated this situation in an English public services organisation where a major work redesign initiative required professionals to engage in new tasks that they did not want to do. Based on our findings, we develop a process model of professional identity restructuring that includes the following four stages: (1) resisting identity change and mourning loss of previous work, (2) conserving professional identity and avoiding the new work, (3) parking professional identity and learning the new work, and (4) retrieving and modifying professional identity and affirming the new work. We contribute to the literature by showing how parking one’s professional identity facilitates the creation of liminal space, which enables the restructuring of one’s professional identity. Our model also explicates the dynamics between professional work and professional identity, showing how requirements for new professional work can lead to a new professional identity

Teachers' sense of their professional identity

Abstract The overall aim of this dissertation was to contribute to the conceptualization of teachers’ professional identity. Based on the literature and previous research, teachers’ job satisfaction, self-efficacy, occupational commitment, and change in level of motivation were perceived as indicators of teachers’ sense of their professional identity. The relationships between these indicators were explored using data of 1214 teachers working in secondary education in the Netherlands. Teachers’ relationship satisfaction (referring, for instance, to teachers’ satisfaction with the support they receive or their satisfaction with their co-workers) and teachers’ classroom self-efficacy play a pivotal role in the relationships between the indicators. By further analysing the same dataset, three distinct professional identity profiles were identified: an unsatisfied and demotivated identity profile consisting of teachers who scored relatively low on the indicators, a motivated and affectively committed identity profile consisting of teachers who scored relatively high on the indicators, and a competence doubting identity profile consisting of teachers with a more diverse score pattern. Differences between the profiles were observed regarding teachers’ beliefs about the objectives of education: ‘stimulating personal and moral development’ and ‘importance of qualification and schooling’. No differences between the profiles were observed regarding the teachers’ amount of experience. An additional exploratory study among eighteen teachers showed that the students of teachers with an unsatisfied and demotivated identity profile observed their teachers’ behaviours ‘providing clear instruction’ and ‘efficient classroom management’ more often than students’ ratings of teachers with a motivated and affectively committed or a competence doubting identity profile. Samenvatting De professionele identiteit van docenten moet gezien worden als het resultaat van de voortdurende interactie tussen de persoonlijke kenmerken van een docent en de kenmerken van diens werkomgeving. Deze voortdurende interactie wordt weerspiegeld in de motivatie, het vertrouwen in het eigen kunnen, de arbeidssatisfactie en de professionele betrokkenheid van de docent. De relaties tussen deze indicatoren zijn onderzocht met behulp van gegevens van 1214 leerkrachten in het voortgezet onderwijs in Nederland. De tevredenheid met de contacten op het werk (verwijzend naar, bijvoorbeeld, de tevredenheid met de ontvangen ondersteuning) en het vertrouwen in het eigen kunnen in de klas spelen een centrale rol in de relaties tussen de indicatoren. Op basis van dezelfde dataset werden drie verschillende professionele identiteitsprofielen onderscheidden: een unsatisfied and demotivated profiel, (docenten met dit profiel scoren relatief laag op de indicatoren), een motivated and affectively committed profiel (docenten met dit profiel scoren relatief hoog op de indicatoren) en een competence doubting profiel (bestaande uit docenten met een divers score patroon). Verschillen tussen de profielen werden waargenomen ten aanzien van opvattingen over de doelstellingen van het onderwijs: ‘bevordering van de persoonlijke en morele ontwikkeling’ en ‘belang van kwalificatie en scholing’. De docenten behorende tot de drie profielen verschilden niet in hun hoeveelheid ervaring in het onderwijs. Uit een extra verkennende studie onder achttien leraren bleek dat de leerlingen van de leerkrachten met een unsatisfied and demotivated profiel vaker het gedrag ‘duidelijke instructie’ en ‘efficiënt klasmanagement’ waarnamen bij hun docent dan leerlingen van leerkrachten met een ander identiteitsprofiel.

Counselor Professional Identity of Counselor Profession Education

This paper describes professional identity of counselor educators teaching ina counselor profession education in Indonesia. The counselor identitiy was explored using a self-reported semi-open questionnaire and a focus-group discussion.Using the questionnaire, the couselors self-assessed their competency level of 75 competence-statement based on government's regulation. Their self-assessed level of competencies was compared to factors like age, teaching experiences, professional development as well as their self-efficacy toward the counselor competencies mandated by government. To confirm the survey findings, a focus-group discussion was held and revealed culture-specific competencies that were not explicated in the regulation but deemed an important characteristic of the counselors' identity. The study found that the counselors described themselves having average level of the mandated competencies and developing culture-specific competency related to technology literacy. The findings provide recommendation to set up context-suited professional development training that prepare the counselors for teaching in the profession training

Professional Identity Tensions and Coping Strategies of EFL Pre-Service Teachers

Professional identity of English teachers is an important process in which teachers view themselves as a professional based on social views about “good teacher”, studentteacher relationship, and self-view as a professional teacher. Teacher preparation program such as Micro Teaching (MT) and Program Pengalaman Lapangan or PreService Teaching Practice (PTP) influences this process by providing support and opportunities in creating a strong professional identity since they are still in a preservice phase. The different nature between MT (situated) and PTP (concrete) can be challenging to the pre-service teachers (PSTs), especially during the PTP. These challenges are called professional identity tensions and they involve PSTs (as a person and professional) and undesirable situation. This study aimed to identify the professional identity tensions faced by EFL PSTs during their PTP and how they coped up with the tensions. The study employed a qualitative survey design. The results identified six professional identity tensions and two coping strategies from the story of seven EFL PSTs. Those PSTs was indicated either to feel tension or to have experiences that might lead them to tension. Keywords: EFL pre-service teacher; professional identity tension; coping strateg

Professional Identity

The roles and responsibilities of the professional school counselor continuously evolve in order to meet the needs of an ever-changing and diverse student population. In this paper, several of these roles and responsibilities are identified and described. In addition, two professional organizations that are personally relevant will be identified. I have developed four action plans that support my individual growth and further develop my professional identity. Finally, shared is my vision as a professional school counselor and agent of social change

Educating for Professional Identity Development

__Abstract__ In preparing students for their role in their respective communities, vocational and professional education should provide for learning experiences that acculturate them to become the new and bona fide practitioners. In addition to acquiring pre-requisite knowledge and skills, the graduates need to have adequately integrated their learning and internalized the values and norms of practice to think, speak and act like the professionals (Buyx, Maxwell, & Schone-Seifert, 2008; Cooke, Irby, & O'Brien, 2010; Dall'Alba, 2009; Monrouxe, 2010; Sheppard, Macatangay, Colby, & Sullivan, 2009; Sullivan, Colby, Wegner, Bond, & Shulman, 2007). For the transformation to take place more successfully, students have to be supported to understand their developing identities: in making

A narrative approach to professional identity

The construction of identity for early years practitioners in England – the workforce who support the care, learning and development of very young children - is potentially problematic because their roles lie at the intersection of care and education, shaped by the discourse of powerlessness. Historically, such employment was largely the preserve of working class women. Recent moves to professionalize this workforce include raising their qualification levels, a stronger emphasis on multi-agency working, and the introduction of job titles and workplace terminology that steers their roles towards educational outcomes (DfE, 2013). These moves are driven by the government bodies who fund and regulate the early years sector, rather than by the workforce themselves, and have the potential to stifle the development of an individual practitioner’s understanding of their professional identity (Osgood, 2006; Moss, 2006). Our research takes a narrative approach to gathering data about how these practitioners define themselves and the nature of the professionalism they value, particularly exploring the tension between an identity as a skilled technician meeting externally set competences, and a values-based identity including reflective and critical thinking (Moss, 2006). Such an approach recognises the individual’s right to agency in defining themselves and the professional values and practices they consider central to their particular roles. However, we recognize that in gathering and interpreting such idiosyncratic data, issues of validity and reliability arise in terms of the truth of our interpretations and the generalizability of our conclusions. By using multi-layered readings and presentations of our data (Mauthner and Doucet, 1998; Lewis, 1963) to maximize transparency in our analyses, we hope to address these. Our round table discussion will centre on this aspect of our work to explore how agency and individuality can be maintained in our data gathering, without compromising the reliability of our findings

Making Good Lawyers

Today, the criticism of law schools has become an industry. Detractors argue that legal education fails to effectively prepare students for the practice of law, that it is too theoretical and detached from the profession, that it dehumanizes and alienates students, too expensive and inapt in helping students develop a sense of professional identity, professional values, and professionalism. In this sea of criticisms it is hard to see the forest from the trees. “There is so much wrong with legal education today,” writes one commentator, “that it is hard to know where to begin.” This article argues that any reform agenda will fall short if it does not start by recognizing the dominant influence of the culture of autonomous self-interest in legal education. Law schools engage in a project of professional formation and instill a very particular brand of professional identity. They educate students to become autonomously self-interested lawyers who see their clients and themselves as pursuing self-interest as atomistic actors. As a result, they understand that their primary role is to serve as neutral partisans who promote the narrow self-interest of clients without regard to the interests of their families, neighbors, colleagues, or communities and to the exclusion of counseling clients on the implications of those interests. They view as marginal their roles as an officer of the legal system and as a public citizen and accordingly place a low priority on traditional professional values, such as the commitment to the public good, that conflict with their primary allegiance to autonomous self-interest. In this work of professional formation, law schools are reflecting the values and commitments of the autonomously self-interested culture that is dominant in the legal profession. Therefore, even if law schools sought to form a professional identity outside of the mold of autonomous self-interest, such a commitment would require much more than curricular reform. It would, at minimum, require the construction of a persuasive alternative understanding of the lawyer’s role. The article seeks to offer such an understanding grounded in a relational perspective on lawyers and clients. Part I offers workable definitions of professionalism and professional identity that enable an informed discussion of the formation of professional identity in and by law schools. Part II explores what and how legal education teaches students showing that both institutionally (at the law school level) and individually (at the law professor level) legal education is proactively engaged in the formation of a professional identity of autonomous self-interest. Part II further explains that its dominance in legal education notwithstanding, autonomous self-interest is but one, often unpersuasive, account of professionalism and professional identity. Part III turns to the competing vision of relationally self-interested professionalism and professional identity and develops an outline for legal education grounded in these conceptions. Because legal education reflects a deep commitment to the dominant culture of autonomous self-interest, it is unlikely that reform proposals that are inconsistent with that culture are likely to succeed in the near future. Yet proposing an alternative account of professional identity that exposes the assumptions of the dominant culture, explains their limitations, and develops a more persuasive understanding is a necessary step toward providing a workable framework for reformers committed to promoting professional values in the long term

The impact of Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation on the professional identity of academic staff in a higher education institution: A qualitative study

Aims: To explore Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation as a process experienced by nursing and midwifery academics and its impact on their sense of professional identity. Background: The introduction of revalidation nurses and midwives in the UK in 2016 caused some anxiety amongst registrants in higher education. Design: A qualitative study using a purposeful sample involving thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with academic staff. Methods: Ten registrants completed a semi‐structured interview in a higher education institution. Results/Findings Clinical credibility: participants were self‐conscious about time away from practice but retained strong links with clinical settings reviewing evidence and reports of current practice. The revalidation process: staff were generally positive about NMC revalidation. Professional identity: participants identified as nurses and midwives first and academics second. Conclusions The findings replicate previous studies about professional identity among healthcare professionals in higher education; this study reports the contribution of revalidation amongst nurses and midwives in higher education institutions