Experiences in Sense Making: Health Science Students’ I-Positioning in an Online Philosophy of Science Course

This article reports on a qualitative study on the dialogical approach to learning in the context of higher education. The aim was to shed light on the I-Position and multivoicedness in students’ identity-building, and to provide empirical substantiation for these theoretical constructs, focusing especially on the connection between personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge. The study explored how health science students’ reflections on their work and discipline-related experiences provided resources for making personal sense of and understanding the subject studied. The students undertook an online course on the philosophy of science. To study students’ internal and external dialogue in terms of multivoicedness in their sense-making processes a discourse analysis combined with a dialogical approach was applied. The results showed that in reflecting on their experiences in the light of different scientific approaches, the students became engaged in dialogues with different voices, thereby experiencing tensions in their professional positioning. The reasoning tasks gave rise to internal dialogue, involving negotiation between different I-Positions of the self or heterodialogue with the texts. These identity negotiations were manifested in refining, strengthening, and re-constructing professional and scientific I-Positions, and in sharing and constructing a We-Position.peerReviewe

Tensions and striving for coherence in an academic’s professional identity work

The emergence of ‘new managerialism’ in academic institutions and professions has given rise to tensions between one’s professional self and work context. Such tensions often originate from a misalignment between institutional and personal values. This study builds on a dialogical approach to identity and discusses the role of inner tensions and conflicts in terms of making sense of one’s professional identity. These aspects are explored and exemplified by introducing a sample case of one individual student and university researcher/teacher, Anna, who participated in one-year Pedagogical Studies for Adult Educators. Leaning on the narratives of Anna’s learning diaries and a later interview, the article describes tensions and critical conflicts in her professional I-positioning. The study shows how tensions and their resolutions, at their best, can lead to constructive identity work, thereby finding a new personal sense resulting in a more integrated professional identity.peerReviewe

Building teacher identity through the process of positioning

This study explores teacher identity work in the context of a one-year programme, Pedagogical Studies for Adult Educators. The data consist of weekly learning diaries written by Anna, a university teacher, during one academic year. The diaries are analysed by means of dialogically oriented narrative analysis leaning on Bakhtinian notions of voicing and ventriloquation. The results show how Anna positions her storytelling and narrated self in relation to relevant characters by voicing and evaluating these characters. The construct of positioning provides tools for understanding the relationship between the self and others in teacher identity.peerReviewe

Constructing Teacher Self in a Dialogue between Multiple I-Positions : A Case from Teacher Education

This study approached preservice teacher identity by drawing on Dialogical Self theory and especially the notion of I-position. The study explored how one preservice subject teacher, Aino, constructed her I-position as a becoming teacher in a dialogue between voices originating from her previous school experiences and voices stemming from her subject teacher pedagogical studies. The results of a dialogically oriented narrative analysis of the interview data showed that Aino constructed her teacher identity in a dialogical process between multiple internal and external I-positions. The pedagogical studies produced both positive and negative boundary experiences that enabled Aino to recognize tensions between internal (e.g., I as a becoming teacher and I as a pupil) and external (e.g., my past teachers) I-positions within her dialogical self. Aino constructed her preservice teacher identity in a critical dialogue and negotiation between different voices and I-positions originating from different times and places. Consequently, teacher education should help students become aware of the dynamics and tensions of the social, cultural, and institutional structures surrounding teachers’ work and to develop as agentive teachers who can transform their own thinking and practice in the complex, changing world of teachers’ work.peerReviewe

Transformative Authorship Through Critical Dialogue : Concepts, Theory, and Practice

This conceptual article deals with components and concepts of transformative learning, emphasizing the organization-level perspective on critical reflection. The discussion leans on the concept of transformative authorship and it is argued that it enables authoring processes through which professionals can recognize and recreate their routinized work practices. The aim of the research is to explore how professional experiences are integrated with reflexive, theoretical knowledge through critical dialogue. The authoring process of transformative authorship is illustrated with two complementary case studies from postgraduate health care education. In both cases, the learning tasks were designed as constructed objects by various instructional interventions where organizational contradictions or dilemmas were used as an inspiring premise for transformation. Transformative authorship was realized as the professionals’ reflexive awareness of their capacity to influence the intentional variation in their modes of action.peerReviewe

No One Ever Steps in the Same Discussion Twice : The Relationship Between Identities and Meaning

The concept of identification is a relational construct; that is, identities are not static but rather negotiated based on available material and symbolic resources. However, we know relatively little about how identities play a dual role when students collaborate. The aim of this paper is to explore this process through multiple case studies: we aim to explore how identities are enacted and used in making personal sense and understand the content knowledge, while at the same time we are interested in how this process can take a form of renewing process in the sense that the identities enacted are themselves changed, transformed or re-negotiated. Our results show that due to its dual role, identities mediate collaborative learning not only because knowledge is constructed in relation to identities but because online selves are articulated and constructed in relation to knowledge construction.peerReviewe

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