Transnationality and Teacher Educator Identity Development: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Study

ABSTRACT

Transnational teacher educators, who cross national, social, and cultural boundaries to prepare teachers, play a vital role in nurturing teachers’ awareness and appreciation of learner diversity. However, transnational teacher educators tend to encounter tremendous challenges in developing their professional identities. To date, though many studies have investigated how teachers and teacher educators in general develop their professional identities, scant attention has been paid to that complex process of “transnational” teacher educators. To begin to close this research gap, this collaborative autoethnographic study examines how we develop our teacher educator identities through teaching a diversity course in the United States as transnational teacher educators from China and South Korea. The findings reveal that our transnational backgrounds (e.g., speaking English as a second language and holding particular cultural beliefs) initially challenged our identity development, but our continuous teaching and learning within a supportive institutional context turned the marginality of our transnational backgrounds into professional assets. The research findings can extend our understanding of teacher educators’ identity development. The study also suggests practical implications for teacher education programs to create an inclusive and supportive professional community in which all teacher educators may grow.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational teacher educator
• teacher educator identity development
• teaching diversity course
• collaborative autoethnography

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Drs. Alyssa Dunn and Rui Yuan for their insightful critiques on early drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wei Liao

Wei Liao is an assistant professor at the Center for Teacher Education Research, Beijing Normal University. His research interests include teacher education, educational policy, and comparative and international education. His work has appeared in the International Journal of Educational Research, TESOL Quarterly, and the Journal of Education for Teaching.

Jihea Maddamsetti

Jihea Maddamsetti is an assistant professor of elementary education at the Department of Teaching & Learning, Old Dominion University. Her research focuses on teacher education and language and literacy studies. Her work has been published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Education for Teaching, and the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education.