Teaching and Research: Identity Representations Among Teacher-Education Faculty Members, Decades After an Institutional Change

Abstract

Recent emphasis on research productivity in teacher-education institutions has intensified the inherent tension in faculty members’ roles as both educators and researchers. We adopt the framework of social representations theory to explore identity perceptions among teacher-educators whose organization required them to take on the identity of “researcher.” The study relies on qualitative content analysis of data from eight focus groups (n = 100) comprising faculty members at an Israeli teachers’ training college that transitioned into an academic research institution. We observe that, in the wake of the organizational change, participants abandoned the traditional hegemonic representation of the centrality of pedagogy and accepted new representations combining teaching and research. Yet few participants identified with the new representation on a personal level, and pedagogy continued to constitute the essence of their work.

Keywords:

• Change
• college teachers
• conflictual and polyphasic social representations
• hegemonic
• organizational identity
• role identity

Notes

1 Throughout the paper I use the term research (and the corresponding term researcher) to refer to a wide variety of scholarly activities, including research per se and the publication of academic articles, in addition to participation in academic conferences, staying abreast of current literature in the field, and so forth.

2 Protocol #150 of the meeting of the Knesset Committee for Science and Technology, January 9, 2018; see also https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5068684,00.html (article in Hebrew).

3 http:/www.atlasti.com/index/html