BSA Auto/Biography Study Group

Centre for Biography and Education, University of Southampton

22nd Auto/Biography Summer Conference

Picturing the Self and Identity

Draw yourself as a Teacher:

Exploring professional identity from
three different cultural and
educational backgrounds

Alejandro Iborra, Gloria Nogueiras

University of Alcal (Alcal de Henares, Madrid, Spain)

General Outline

Theoretical background
Context of the experience
Method
Results
First 7 categories
Main general issues

Discussion

First of all
Draw yourself in a paper as a
teacher/professional in your field

Identity
the sense of sameness and continuity and the belief in
ones social role
Erikson (1968, p.67)
An optimal sense of identity could be recognized by
three different traits: a physical feeling of
connectedness and familiarity with ones body, a
sense of direction and the assurance of being
recognized by significant others.
(Erikson, 1968)

Identity
It is the function of an ego structure which created
this experience of personal continuity.
Responsible of unconsciously testing, selecting and
integrating self-images, synthesizing impressions,
emotions, memories, impulses and actions.
The ego is unconscious. We become aware of its
work, but never of it (Erikson, 1968, p.218).

Professional identity
Professional identity refers not only to the
influence of the conceptions and expections
of other people, including broadly accepted
images in society about what a teacher should
know and do, but also to what teachers
themselves find important in their
professional work and lives based on both
their experiences in practice and their
personal backgrounds.
Tickle, 2000

Professional Identity
These conceptions or images of self strongly
determine the way teachers teach, the way
they develop as teachers, and their attitudes
toward educational changes.
Tickle, 2000

Professional identity
Teacher identitywhat beginning teachers
believe about teaching and learning as self-as
teacher is of vital concern to teacher
education; it is the basis for meaning making
and decision making. Teacher education must
begin, then, by exploring the teaching self.
(Bullough, 1997, p.21)

Representation of professional identity formation from a

teachers knowledge perspective (Beijaard et al. 2004)

How, we wonder, do childhood memories and

indelible social stereotypes silently colour the
voices beginning teachers use to speak their
emerging identity? What images of teacher
lurk deep in the shadows of their automatic
responses, texturing their identity and the way
they teach and think?
Weber, Mitchel, 1996, p. 303

Exploration guidelines
Is the identity of being a teacher maintained
through different educational levels and cultures?
What are the main traits of this professional
identity?
How is the identity of being a teacher mostly
represented and what kind of narratives are
sustaining it?

Research
Context
When? Academic years 2011/2012 and 2012/2013
Where? Three different cultural frameworks:
Spanish culture (University of Alcal, Madrid)
Guinea Ecuatorial culture (University of Guinea Ecuatorial, Malabo)
North Sahara culture (Institute of Pedagogical Training, 9th of June
Saharan Camp, Tindouf).

Who? Different formal university courses for students who wanted to

become Primary, Secondary and Higher Education Teachers
What? Drawings of the participants as teachers
What for? To explore how the different participants could represent
their implicit knowledge about their identity as teachers

Method
Drawings offer a different kind of glimpse into
human sensemaking than written or spoken
texts do, because they can express that which
is not easily put into words: the ineffable, the
elusive, the not-yet-thought-through, the subconscious.
(Weber and Mitchell, 1996, p. 304)

Draw yourself as a teacher!!!!!

Method
Images are evocative and can allow access to different
parts of human consciousness (Prosser and Loxley,
2008): communicating more holistically, and through
metaphors, they can enhance empathic
understanding, capture the ineffable, and help us pay
attention to reality in different ways, making the
ordinary become extraordinary (Weber, 2008).
In Bagnoli 2009, p. 548

Method
First Categorical analysis of drawings
emphasizing similarities attending to content
and topics
Holistic analysis of drawings according to the
exceptions and remarkable absences,
attending to content but also form
Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach y Zilber, (1998); Smith and Sparkes (2009)

Different categories of drawings

Draw yourself as a teacher

Category 1: teacher alone with professional and formal resources

Category 2 : traditional teaching situation, control, ordered rows,
transmission
Category 3: transition from category 2 to category 4: teacher and
students closer, but the teacher as the main source of
information/discipline, usually in a classroom setting
Category 4: students and teacher working together (collaborative and
more open contexts, also different contexts beyond the classroom)
Category 5: symbolic drawings
Category 6: problems concerning power, violence and discipline
Category 7: different drawings as examples of sequential processes,
complexity and multiple representations.

Category 1: Teacher alone with professional and

formal resources (Guinea)

Category 1: Teacher alone with professional and

formal resources (Sahara)

Category 2. Traditional teaching situation,

control, ordered rows, transmision

 () traditional stereotypes of teaching and teachers are still

powerful forces in the classroom. These stereotypes draw their
strength from their familiarity, and from their vivid imaginery that
can even re-write how we see ourselves, replacing tentative new
images with the old standbys.
Weber, Mitchel, 1996:310

Category 3. Transition from category 1 to category 3.

Teacher and students closer, but the teacher as the main
source of information/discipline

Category 4. Students and teacher working together

(collaborative and more open contexts, also different contexts
beyond the classroom)

Category 5:

symbolic drawings

Category 6:

problems concerning power,

violence and discipline

() emerging teachers are unsure of themselves and

fight to retain almost any image of themselves that
can be labelled teacher. An authoritatian stance is
often based on a unacknowledged and profound
sense of fear a fear that in itself becomes a threat
to ones identity or well-being. As they develop
greater confidence and a surer sense of self-asteacher-, the fear may diminish and the need to be in
firm control lessens.
Weber, Mitchel, 1996:310 (revista)

Category 7: different drawings as examples of

sequential processes, complexity and multiple
representations

Data collection
Spain
Primary

1. Teacher
alone

1 (6%)

2. Traditional

10(62%)

3. Transition
4.
Collaborative

3 (18%)

5. Symbolic
6. Power

1 (6%)

7. Complex
rep.

17

Spain
Secondary

Spain
University 1

Spain
University 2

Guinea
University

Saharoui
Secondary

9 (47%)

9 (39%)
10 (43%)

23 (27%)

5 (26%)

2 (13%)

4 (21%)

21 (25%)

3 (15%)

1 (6,6%)

2 (10%)

16 (19%)

5 (26%)

6 (40%)

3 (16%)

7 (8%)

5 (26%)

1 (6,6%)

3 (16%)

2 (9%)

15

19

23

3 (3,5%)
5 (6%)

1 ( 5%)

85

19

70

Primary
Studies
Primary
Studies
60

Cultural
Cultural
differences
50 difference

University
Primary

Secondary

University 1

Guinea

Sahara

University 2

Higher Education and

Secondary Studies

40

Secondary

University

30

20

Secondary and also

Higher Ed.
10

0
CAT1

CAT2

CAT3

CAT4

CAT5

CAT6

Symbolic
Alone Traditional Transition Collaborative
Power and
control

CAT7

Complex
representations

General Issues beyond categories

Individual profession
Size and authority relationship
Smiles and affiliation stances
Attention to students sensibility
Conflict with the context or the idea of the
profession

Individual profession

Size and implicit authority relationship

Sensibility to individual differences

Sensibility to individual differences

Smiles and affiliation stances

Exceptions

Conflict with the context or the idea of

the profession

The teacher is the balance

between his professional
duties and his material
needs

A teacher works, of course, to eat.

Nowadays the bread is as
important as the school.The
teacher is marginalized, ill, with no
importance.

Professional identity formation is often

presented as a struggle because (student)
teachers have to make sense of varying and
sometimes competing perspectives,
expectations, and roles that they have to
confront and adapt
Beijard et. al 2004, p.115

Final thoughts
To draw is a valid exercise to make conscious
implicit conceptions about the meaning of
being a teacher as an example of professional
identity

Through their metaphorical power, images are both the building blocks
of our thinking schemata, and the filters through wich we
uncounsciously assess our pedagogical knowledge
Weber, Mitchel, 1996, p. 305

Final Thoughts
The identity of being a teacher is generally maintained
through different educational levels and cultures
Prevalence of an image of teacher stressing formal
appearance and traditional teaching practices, above
all in Primary, Secondary Education context
Ideas of control and nurture practices are also quite
common as evidenced by Weber and Mitchel, 1996

Final Thoughts
Some of conceptions go on exploring are:

Underlying teaching practices

Traditional (transmission, teacher a source of information)
Collaborative, Constructivist
Transitional

Relational issues (sensibility to students, control, nurture)

Individual Culture VS Community Culture
Simple VS Complex representations
Problems with the changing and demanding social context

References

Bagnoli, A. (2004). Researching identities with Multi-method Autobiographies. Sociological

Research Online, 9(2), 1-22.
Bagnoli, A. (2009). Beyond the standard interview: The use of graphic elicitation and
artsbased methods. Qualitative Research, 9(5), 547-570.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P.C., Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers professional
identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20,107-128.
Bullough, R. V. (1997). Practicing theory and theorizing practice. In J. Loughran, & T. Russell
(Eds.), Purpose, passion and pedagogy in teacher education (pp. 1331). London: Falmer
Press.
Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. NewYork: Norton.
Lieblich, A., Tuval-Mashiach, R. & Zilber, T. (1998). Narrative research: reading, analysis, and
interpretation. Londres: Sage.
Smith, B.; Sparkes, A.C. (2009) Narrative analysis and sport and exercise psychology:
Understanding lives in diverse ways. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Birmingham, v. 10, p.
279-288
Tickle, L. (2000). Teacher induction: The way ahead. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open
University Press.
Weber, S., Mitchell, C. (1996) Drawing ourselves into teaching: studying the images that
shape and distort teacher education. Teaching & Teacher Education, 12 (3), 303-313.
Weber, S. & Mitchell, C. (1996). Using Drawings to Interrogate Professional Identity and the
Popular Culture of Teaching. in Teachers Professional Lives. Ivor F. Goodson and Andy
Hargreaves. Falmer Press: Bristol, PA,. 109-126.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR

ATTENTION

Contact:
alejandro.iborra@uah.es