The Shaping Of Professional Identities

This volume extends the authors' work on ""personal practical knowledge"" as the way through which teachers hone their craft - ""Teachers' Professional Knowledge Landscapes"". They examine the question of how professional identities are formed.

Working with a group of teacher researchers, Connelly and Clandinin address the question of how professional identities are formed. The volume includes richly textured stories of professional lives in teacher, administrative, and curriculum-making settings. These thoroughly readable, autobiographical depictions help unravel the narrative interweavings of professional contexts, teacher knowledge, and teacher identity. Authors' insightful interpretations of these stories provide valuable implications for teacher education, professional development, and progressive school change.

This thought-provoking research anthology adopts a postmodern stance and fills in a gap of knowledge for the education of professional development in teacher education, health sciences and the arts. Allowing subjectivity and multiple voices, the authors add to the intimate and negotiated knowledge of being and becoming – indigenous, architect, mother, teacher, health researcher, and supervisor. In fifteen chapters, the authors share knowledge of pain and reward in critical events in the realm of professional identity formation. The book provides a selection of personal and far-reaching stories and adds to the reflexivity of memories of critical events. Contributors are: Geir Aaserud, Åsta Birkeland, Bodil H. Blix, Sidsel Boldermo, Mimesis Heidi Dahlsveen, Nanna Kathrine Edvardsen, Rikke Gürgens Gjærum, Tona Gulpinar, Carola Kleemann, Tove Lafton, Mette Bøe Lyngstad, Elin Eriksen Ødegaard, Anna-Lena Østern, Alicja R. Sadownik, Tiri Bergesen Schei and Vibeke Solbue.

Understanding Teacher Identity: The Complexities of Forming an Identity as Professional Teacher introduces the reader to a collection of research-based works by authors that represent current research concerning the complexities of teacher identity and the role of teacher preparation programs in shaping the identity of teachers. Important to teacher preparation, as a profession, is a realization that the psychological, philosophical, theoretical, and pedagogical underpinnings of teacher identity have critical importance in shaping who the teacher is, and will continue to become in his/her practice. Teacher identity is an instrumental factor in teachers’ and the students’ success. Chapter One opens the book with a focus on the development of teacher identity, providing an introduction to the book and an understanding of the growing importance of identity in becoming a teacher. Chapters Two–Nine present field-based research that examines the complexities of teacher identity in teacher preparation and the importance of teacher identity in the teaching and learning experiences of the classroom. Finally, Chapter Ten presents an epilogue focusing on teacher identity and the importance, as teacher educators and practitioners, of making sense of who we are and how identity plays a critical role in the preparation and practice of teachers.

This book explores the experiences, understandings, and beliefs that guide the professional practices of teacher educators. What are the responsibilities of doing the job and how does it re-shape the professional identity of those who do it, day in, day out?

Bringing together the perspectives of an internationally renowned group of specialists, the collection addresses a range of issues associated with professional identity construction and 'being professional' in the context of a rapidly changing inter-professional environment. It explores traditional aspects of professional identity such as beliefs, values, in-group status and belonging, alongside themes of professional socialisation, workplace culture, group membership, boundary maintenance, jurisdiction disputes and inter-professional tensions with health, education and the police.

In this book, first-hand accounts from academics and practitioners explore the concept of "professional identity development" in the context of higher education and provide guidance to develop and enhance professionalism. The Development of Professional Identity in Higher Education presents a new understanding of identity development. Highlighting the importance of building positive identities in the development of a professional career, it argues for a reframing of the way academics think of themselves, suggesting the role of "practitioner" as one in which there is a continuous need to develop their professionalism as it connects to their daily practices and different identities. With contributions from a range of international authors, it demonstrates how professional development can change our beliefs and perceptions of the profession itself, whether it be through on-the-job instruction aimed at making teachers/researchers better, or through "self-learning" whereby teachers and researchers learn to develop and enhance their teaching and research competency through daily activities and self-analysis. This book will be of great interest to researchers and graduate and postgraduate students in teacher education and professional development.

This book presents ideas and guidance about human development to enhance medical education's ability to form competent and responsible physicians.

The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from the Fifth European Conference on Management Consulting sponsored by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, which took place June, 2011 at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference theme – Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants – attempted to capture the highly ambiguous social status of this young and emerging profession. Management consulting does not have professional standards or accreditation criteria like those found in medicine or law, there are low barriers to entry, and a broad range of tasks are undertaken in the name of consulting. As a result, a crucial aspect of what constitutes such a loosely defined profession is the identity of its members. The professional identity of management consultants is continuously developing through the interplay of how consultants are seen and valued by clients as well as in the larger society, and how consultancy firms and consultants identify and position themselves. This theme includes a variety of topics, ranging from the interaction between consultants and their clients, consultant rhetoric and self-presentation, and the plethora of books, media and public discourse on consulting, to human resource policies and practices, knowledge development activities of consultancy firms, career and life stories of consultants and consultancies, and consulting associations, accreditation bodies, and education programs. All of these factors contribute, either directly or indirectly, to identity construction in the field of management consulting.