Teacher Identity and the Struggle for Recognition

Meeting the Challenges of a Diverse Society

Edited by Patrick M. Jenlink

Publication date:

09 April 2014

Length of book:

290 pages

Publisher

R&L Education

ISBN-13: 9781607095743

Teacher identity is shaped by recognition or its absence, often by misrecognition of others. Recognition as a teacher, or the strong and complex identification with one’s professional culture and community, is necessary for a positive sense of self. Increasingly, teachers are entering educational settings where difference connotes not equal, better/worse, or having more/less power over resources. Differences between discourses of identity are braided at many points with a discourse of racism, both interpersonal and structural.

Teacher Identity and the Struggle for Recognition examines the nature of identity and recognition as social, cultural, and political constructs. In particular, the contributing authors to the book present discussions of the professional work necessary in teacher preparation programs concerned with preparing teachers for the complexities of teaching in schools that mirror an increasingly diverse society. Importantly, the authors illuminate many of the often problematic structures of schooling and the cultural politics that work to define one’s identity – drawing into specific relief the nature of the struggle for recognition that all face who choose to entering teaching as a profession.

Preface
Introduction: Teacher Identity: The Nature of Invisibility and the Need for recognition
Patrick M. Jenlink

Section I: The Meaning of Identity – Understanding Teacher Identity in a Diverse Society
Chapter 1 – The Metamorphosis of Teacher Identity: An Intersection of Ethnic Consciousness, Self-Conceptualization, and Belief Systems
Ellen Riojas Clark and Belinda Bustos Flores
Chapter 2 – Guardian of the Status Quo or Agent of Change?: An Exploration of the Role of Identity in the School
Lorraine S. Gilpin and Delores D. Liston
Chapter 3– Teacher Identity and Intersubjective Experience
Mary Catherine Niño
Chapter 4 – Tensions in Teachers’ Identities as Educators for Social Justice
Karen Sirna and Richard Tinning

Section II: Pedagogical Considerations in Shaping Teacher Identity – Raising Identity Awareness
Chapter 5 – The Hazards of Engaging Teacher Identity in a Pre-Service Middle Level Program
Cynthia C. Reyes and Penny A. Bishop
Chapter 6 – New Teachers as Cultural Workers: Cultivating a Wide-Awake Consciousness of Identity
Rosalie M. Romano
Chapter 7 – Becoming a Teacher: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Motivation and Teacher Identity Formation
Ann Nevin, Lori Bradshaw, Maria Cardelle-Elawar, and Rosario Diaz-Greenburg
Chapter 8 – An Exchange Between Black and White Teacher Educators: Healing, Teaching, Perils and Possibilities
Jean Moule and Ken Winograd
Chapter 9 – Identity in Cultural Perspective: How it Matters to Teachers and Teaching
Susan Florio-Ruane

Section III: Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Teacher Identity – Embracing Politics and Professionalism
Chapter 10 – The Irony of Women Teachers’ Beliefs About Gender
Michele Kahn
Chapter 11 – From As if to What if: Interrogating Power, Agency, Space, and Self in the Feminized Position of Teacher
Mary Catherine Niño
Chapter 12 – Personal, Professional, and Political Identities of Lesbian Teachers
Darline Hunter, Michele Kahn, and Lezlie Gless

Section IV: Identity Formation – Writing and Reading Teacher Identity
Chapter 13 – Teacher-Candidates and Writer Identity: The Elephant in the Room
Linda Fernsten and Pamela Hollander
Chapter 14 – Using Literature-Based Strategies with New Teachers to Complicate What They Know about Identity
Beth Berghoff and Kerry Hoffman
Chapter 15 – Gaining Ideological Clarity: Constructing Positions on Race and Class in Teacher Preparation
Jane Murray Agee

Section V: Contextualizing Teacher Identity – Situating the Teacher Self
Chapter 16 – The Challenge to Care: Personal Reflections of a Black Woman Teacher Educator’s Struggle to Establish Legitimacy in the College Classroom
Marlene Munn Joseph
Chapter 17 – Developing a Contextualized Teacher Identity: Embracing the Culture of the Borderlands
Judith H. Munter, Beverley Calvo, Nancy Tafoya, and Sylvia Trillo
Chapter 18 – Enseñanza de la Otro: Engaging Mexican Origin Students as an African-American Outsider
Violet R. Johnson Jones
Chapter 19 – Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers’ Conocimientos: Shifting and Evolving Consciousness
Lilliana P. Saldaña and Josephine Méndez-Negrete

Section VI: Being, Becoming a Teacher – Reflections on Teacher Identity Chapter 20 – Learning Our Identity as Teacher: A Palimpsest Writ Large in Life
Patrick M. JenlinkChapter 21 - Coda: Needed: A Pedagogy of Identity in Teacher Preparation
Patrick M. JenlinkAbout the Editor and Contributing Authors

In this book, Patrick Jenlink has collected a provocative set of essays about the meaning and nature of teacher identity in today’s acutely political educational climate. With striking clarity, the essays make two arguments: that invisibility based on cultural difference is a deep threat to public education, and that constructing pedagogy and curriculum for America’s schools based on recognition can be a powerful antidote.