Narrative construction of teacher identity: positioning and negotiation

Abstract

This article shows how five Norwegian female elementary school teachers use narrative resources to construct and negotiate several possible teacher identities. The aim of the article is to illuminate how teacher identities can be narratively constructed and understood, and not to define what identity Norwegian teachers as a group or individuals possess. The five teachers were interviewed about their everyday life in Norwegian public elementary schools and their narratives were analysed within a theoretical framework based on post‐structuralist and discourse theory combined with theories of narrative identity. In the teacher narratives more than 30 subject positions were identified, in addition to four identity constructions: ‘the caring and kind teacher’; ‘the creative and innovative teacher’; ‘the professional teacher’; ‘the typical teacher’. Through discussions of excerpts from the teacher narratives the article argues that the negotiation between multiple identities is a necessary part of the construction of teacher identity. This illumination of teacher identity as multifaceted and constructed has several implications, as it excludes the belief that teacher education, school leaders, teacher unions or curriculum can provide teachers with ready‐made and universal identities which they should fit in to. Instead, the perception of identity reflected in this article allows teachers to construct identities that might be experienced as unique, relevant and meaningful.

Keywords:

• Teacher identity
• Narrative identity
• Subject position
• Discourse analysis

Notes

1. The PISA 2003 (Programme for International Student Assessment) test is an OSCD coordinated international assessment of pupils’ functional competence in mathematics, natural science and reading. In 2003 more than 250,000 pupils from 41 countries participated, 4000 of whom were Norwegian.