Teacher identity as inquirer: voices of teacher educators

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study uses the dialogical self theory to explore teacher educators’ voices as they speak on the issue of teacher identity positioning, specifically when it comes to the position of teachers as inquirers. A content analysis of self-reports from 18 teacher educators yielded 3 primary teacher core I-positions. The results showed that the teacher educators viewed teachers more as mediators than as instructors or inquirers. Although all the participants acknowledged the relevance of the inquiry process in the teaching profession, they differed as to the value, purpose, and learning outcomes of adopting an inquiry position in the initial training of teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher identity
• teacher educators’ voices
• inquiry identity
• core I-positions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here

Notes

1. We are aware that the notions of ‘teacher as researcher’ and ‘teacher as inquirer’ sometimes have different meanings according to some conceptual approaches or perspectives. In our study, we prioritise the notion of inquiry understood as practice-oriented research aimed at supporting decisions or at developing new knowledge that, in turn, contributes to solving a practical problem (Bleijenbergh, Korzilius, and Versuchen 2011; Smith 2015).

2. In Spain, all universities have a similar curriculum for the initial teacher training, and all university professors are both teachers and researchers.

3. According to the requirements with Spanish Ministry of Education (2014)

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the AGAUR (grant number Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2019 FI_B2 00166). This research was partially funded by the Erasmus+ programme, European Union (Ref. 2017-1-ES01-KA203-038303©), and by Aristos Campus Mundus (Ref. ACM2018_08).

Notes on contributors

Mireia Giralt-Romeu

Mireya Giralt-Romeu PhD student and assistant researcher of the University of Ramon Llull. She works as a Psychopedagogical Advisor of the Counselling and Psychological Innovation Service of Ramon Llull University. Her current research interests include the teacher professional identity development and, teacher-inquirer identity.

Eva Liesa

Eva Liesa Hernández Assistant professor at the Department of Psychology of the University of Ramon Llull (URL). Coordinator of the Centre in Educational Innovation in the Faculty of Psychology, Educational Sciences, and Sports Blanquerna (URL). Her main areas of research are dialogical self-theory (DST), initial and continuous teacher education, teacher identity, and teacher-inquirer identity.

Montserrat Castelló

Montserrat Castelló i Badia Professor at the Department of Psychology of the University of Ramon Llull (URL). Director of The Research Institute in Psychology, Learning and development of the URL (Re-Psy). Her main areas of research are academic writing and the development of the professional and research identity.