Navigating identity tensions in a research community: a narrative inquiry of a teacher of Romanian

ABSTRACT

Despite a surge of research interest on languages other than English (LOTE) education over the past years, there is a lack of attention to LOTE teachers’ professional practice and development in higher education. To address such a gap, this narrative inquiry examines how a Romanian language teacher navigates identity tensions and seeks his professional development through his participation in a research community in a Chinese university. Informed by possible selves theory and relying on data from two rounds of interviews and field observation notes, the findings show that the participant constantly tried to create, update, and refine his multiple identities (i.e. actual, ought, ideal and feared), which aligned with and/or contradicted each other with collective influences on his daily practice and development. The study offers useful implications for LOTE teachers, teacher educators, and university management regarding LOTE teacher development in complex and shifting higher education settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity tensions
• languages other than English (LOTE)
• possible selves theory
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) offers bibliographical access to a curated collection of over 2,700 journals and is used to evaluate and rank domestic journals in China.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China 2021“Theory and Practice of an Online Professional Learning Community of Foreign Language Education in China” (Grant No.: 21AYY015)