Dilemmas Related to the Professional Self-Identity of Russian-Speaking Teachers in Estonia: Adapting and Accommodating to Changes in the Language-in-Education Domain

Abstract

Inspired by the ecological model of human development and inter-subjectivist perspective of identity formation, the article addresses the complexity of professional interactions and highlights the spectrum of possible reactions of Russian-speaking teachers in Estonia to changes in the domain of language-in-education. The qualitative research demonstrates different models of the teachers’ self-views that are constructed and practiced in the interaction within significant layers identified by the ecological approach and reveals the diversity of the dilemmas teachers as professionals face in their everyday working lives.

Keywords:

• Estonia
• identity
• ecological model of human development
• language-in-education policy

Notes

1 The Russian-speaking newcomers also settled in Tartu, Tapa, Haapsalu, and Pärnu.

2 The Common European Framework of Reference: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, a Council of Europe reference document for the European Language Portfolio, is used to describe the levels of language proficiency.

3 In Estonia, the local government is, as a rule, the owner of the general education schools.

4 The level of personal agency was understood as a dimension distinguishing ‘how much an individual has organized his or her actions into abstract, meaningful categories that can operate to channel behavior into dispositional tendencies’ (Vallacher and Wegner 1989, 662).

5 Herein and after the interviewees are referred to as R1, R2 … R9.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tatjana Kiilo

Tatjana Kiilo is a PhD student at the University of Tartu, Institute of Sociology and Social Policy. Her research interests include identity politics, diaspora studies and ethnicity.

Dagmar Kutsar

Dagmar Kutsar is Associate Professor of Social Policy, and Head of the Unit of Family and Welfare Studies at the University of Tartu. She has edited several books, published articles, and led local and international research projects in the field of family, welfare and childhood studies.