Transformation of teacher identity through a Mathematical Literacy re-skilling programme
- Authors: Nel, Benita
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Community of practice theory , Mathematical Literacy programme , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5765 , ISSN 2076-3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7772
- Description: Wenger’s community of practice theory is used to illustrate how, through careful curriculum design, teacher identity can be developed by participation in a re-skilling programme. In the context of learning, a community of practice involves the complex intersection of various components of learning, namely, meaning (learning as experience), practice (learning as doing), identity and community (learning as belonging). The Advanced Certificate in Education in Mathematical Literacy programme was designed to expose participants to knowledge and understanding of the ML curriculum (meaning), development of an integrated approach to teaching and learning, classroom didactics, lesson plans (practice), and group work activities where active participation and dialogue in lectures were encouraged (community). The programme design aimed to promote a change in the teachers’ way of being (identity). Through semi-structured interviews with teachers their journey as individuals was revealed. The findings indicate how by focusing on both content and on the teacher’s becoming a professional can assist educational specialists in their quest for improved teacher development.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Nel, Benita
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Community of practice theory , Mathematical Literacy programme , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5765 , ISSN 2076-3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7772
- Description: Wenger’s community of practice theory is used to illustrate how, through careful curriculum design, teacher identity can be developed by participation in a re-skilling programme. In the context of learning, a community of practice involves the complex intersection of various components of learning, namely, meaning (learning as experience), practice (learning as doing), identity and community (learning as belonging). The Advanced Certificate in Education in Mathematical Literacy programme was designed to expose participants to knowledge and understanding of the ML curriculum (meaning), development of an integrated approach to teaching and learning, classroom didactics, lesson plans (practice), and group work activities where active participation and dialogue in lectures were encouraged (community). The programme design aimed to promote a change in the teachers’ way of being (identity). Through semi-structured interviews with teachers their journey as individuals was revealed. The findings indicate how by focusing on both content and on the teacher’s becoming a professional can assist educational specialists in their quest for improved teacher development.
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Critical pedagogies of place : educators' personal and professional experiences of social (in)justice
- Authors: Perumal, Juliet Christine
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Teacher identity , Social justice , Teachers - Cross-cultural studies
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5449 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.09.004 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13189
- Description: Participating in the education system of a foreign country, or within a new political dispensation presents various challenges for teachers. Understanding the challenges that teachers face as a result of relocation to new geographical and political contexts urges analyzing the contexts, which influence teachers' personal and pedagogic identities. Drawing on Buell's (1995) insights on place and identity; and Fraser's (2008) conceptions of social justice, this paper explores how teachers from South Africa, India, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo reinvent their identities in order to enact their professional and personal lives within different geo-political and socio-cultural contexts.
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- Authors: Perumal, Juliet Christine
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Teacher identity , Social justice , Teachers - Cross-cultural studies
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5449 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.09.004 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13189
- Description: Participating in the education system of a foreign country, or within a new political dispensation presents various challenges for teachers. Understanding the challenges that teachers face as a result of relocation to new geographical and political contexts urges analyzing the contexts, which influence teachers' personal and pedagogic identities. Drawing on Buell's (1995) insights on place and identity; and Fraser's (2008) conceptions of social justice, this paper explores how teachers from South Africa, India, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo reinvent their identities in order to enact their professional and personal lives within different geo-political and socio-cultural contexts.
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Pedagogy of refuge : education in a time of dispossession
- Authors: Perumal, Juliet Christine
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Refugee teachers , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5450 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.792797 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13190
- Description: Despite its chequered history in relation to human rights issues, South Africa has been playing host to peoples displaced and dispossessed by geographies of anger and war, poverty, economic meltdown and other human rights atrocities. Perceiving South Africa as a sanctuary, there has been a steady wave of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees coming to the country in search of better personal and professional prospects. Qualified teachers have been among the sizeable cohort of professionals seeking a new home in South Africa. This article reports on qualitative research, which comprised a sample of seven refugee teachers. It provides pen portraits of their bio/geographical pre-flight, flight and settlement experiences as they emerged from individual interview data. The article draws on theoretical insights from postcolonial theory, deconstructionist conceptions of hospitality and critical feminist notions of communities of practice to explore the personal and professional experiences of these teachers who hold part-time employment at a private school. Some of the participants also hold temporary posts at public schools in Johannesburg. Proceeding from the contention that teachers frame their identities in relation to how they feel about themselves politically, professionally, and emotionally the article explores the dialectic of refugee teacher as a guest and a host in classrooms in a foreign country. It argues that notwithstanding the non-negotiable imperative that the rights of refugee children remain high on the national redress educational agenda; of equal importance is the necessity to be cognisant of refugee teachers who are teaching in the South African education system.
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- Authors: Perumal, Juliet Christine
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Refugee teachers , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5450 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.792797 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13190
- Description: Despite its chequered history in relation to human rights issues, South Africa has been playing host to peoples displaced and dispossessed by geographies of anger and war, poverty, economic meltdown and other human rights atrocities. Perceiving South Africa as a sanctuary, there has been a steady wave of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees coming to the country in search of better personal and professional prospects. Qualified teachers have been among the sizeable cohort of professionals seeking a new home in South Africa. This article reports on qualitative research, which comprised a sample of seven refugee teachers. It provides pen portraits of their bio/geographical pre-flight, flight and settlement experiences as they emerged from individual interview data. The article draws on theoretical insights from postcolonial theory, deconstructionist conceptions of hospitality and critical feminist notions of communities of practice to explore the personal and professional experiences of these teachers who hold part-time employment at a private school. Some of the participants also hold temporary posts at public schools in Johannesburg. Proceeding from the contention that teachers frame their identities in relation to how they feel about themselves politically, professionally, and emotionally the article explores the dialectic of refugee teacher as a guest and a host in classrooms in a foreign country. It argues that notwithstanding the non-negotiable imperative that the rights of refugee children remain high on the national redress educational agenda; of equal importance is the necessity to be cognisant of refugee teachers who are teaching in the South African education system.
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Understanding teacher identity from a symbolic interactionist perspective : two ethnographic narratives.
- Smit, Brigitte, Fritz, Elzette
- Authors: Smit, Brigitte , Fritz, Elzette
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Educational change , Narrative inquiry , Symbolic interactionism , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5763 , ISSN 2076-3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7770
- Description: In this ethnographic inquiry we portray two teacher narratives reflecting educational change in the context of two South African schools. The study was conducted as part of a larger inquiry into ten schools in urban South Africa. A decade of democracy begs some attention to educational progress and reform, from the viewpoint of teachers and with the culture of their schools as the inquiry’s landscape. We present two ethnographic narratives, crafted of a typical ‘township/rural’ school, and an established Afrikaans school, with two teachers as the main social actors. Data were sourced from passive observations, interviews, informal conversations, and journal data. These field texts were analysed for content and narrative using, as methodological frame, the ‘Clandininian’ “metaphorical three-dimensional inquiry space”. Three data themes, teacher authority, commitment to the profession in terms of staying or leaving, and multitasking are theorised from a symbolic interactionist framework, using constructs such as situational, social and personal identity. The major finding of this inquiry speaks to the power of the working context, the educational landscape, which appears to be a much stronger force in the development of teacher identity than national educational policies.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Smit, Brigitte , Fritz, Elzette
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Educational change , Narrative inquiry , Symbolic interactionism , Teacher identity
- Type: Article
- Identifier: uj:5763 , ISSN 2076-3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7770
- Description: In this ethnographic inquiry we portray two teacher narratives reflecting educational change in the context of two South African schools. The study was conducted as part of a larger inquiry into ten schools in urban South Africa. A decade of democracy begs some attention to educational progress and reform, from the viewpoint of teachers and with the culture of their schools as the inquiry’s landscape. We present two ethnographic narratives, crafted of a typical ‘township/rural’ school, and an established Afrikaans school, with two teachers as the main social actors. Data were sourced from passive observations, interviews, informal conversations, and journal data. These field texts were analysed for content and narrative using, as methodological frame, the ‘Clandininian’ “metaphorical three-dimensional inquiry space”. Three data themes, teacher authority, commitment to the profession in terms of staying or leaving, and multitasking are theorised from a symbolic interactionist framework, using constructs such as situational, social and personal identity. The major finding of this inquiry speaks to the power of the working context, the educational landscape, which appears to be a much stronger force in the development of teacher identity than national educational policies.
- Full Text:
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