631222

research-article2016
REL0010.1177/0033688216631222RELC JournalBarkhuizen

Article

RELC Journal

Narrative Approaches to
2016, Vol. 47(1) 25­–42
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
Exploring Language, Identity sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0033688216631222
and Power in Language rel.sagepub.com

Teacher Education

Gary Barkhuizen
University of Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract
This article presents a theoretical overview of the concept of teacher identity, particularly
focusing on poststructuralist conceptions of what identity means, and shows how these ideas can
be associated with ideas about narrative and narrative inquiry. It is argued that it is important for
teachers, through reflective practice or teacher research, to become aware of and understand
their professional identities because doing so has implications for their practice. Two ways of
analysing teacher stories are illustrated: the first, a content or thematic analysis of a written
teacher journal entry, and the second, a short story analysis of an extract of an interview. These
methods are presented as examples of the type of narrative analysis teachers can do to become
more aware of who they are in their professional lives.

Keywords
Teacher identity, narrative inquiry, content analysis, short story analysis, New Zealand

‘Sometimes, unfortunately, the only way to negotiate one’s identity to one of basic respect
is for the situation to get confrontational’ (Roxanne, a language teacher)

Introduction
The quotation above contains a number of keywords which represent the major, interre-
lated topics covered in this article. The first of these is identity. The article describes a
view of identity as fluid, constructed and negotiated in different contexts, and thus

Corresponding author:
Gary Barkhuizen, University of Auckland, School of Cultures, Languages, and Linguistics, Private Bag 92019,
Auckland, New Zealand.
Email: g.barkhuizen@auckland.ac.nz
26 RELC Journal 47(1)

multiple. Three words represent this perspective: sometimes, which refers to the tempo-
ral, changeable character of identity, situation, which refers to the context in which iden-
tities are negotiated and constructed, and the word negotiate itself.
Negotiation comes into play in situations of inequality. As Pavlenko and Blackledge
(2004: 3) say, negotiation ‘may take place between individuals, between majority and
minority groups, and, most importantly, between institutions and those they are supposed
to serve’. Inequality means that some people, groups and institutions have more power
than others, but those with less power do not always accept the positions they find them-
selves in. And so another important word in the quotation is confrontational. This signals
the often conflictual nature of identity negotiation in situations where unequal power
relations are evident.
How does language relate to identity and power? Bourdieu (1977: 652) says that
‘language is worth what those who speak it are worth’. Who we are (our identities) is
inextricably linked to the languages we know and use. But languages and people cannot
in themselves have power; it is in discursive interactions between people and between
people and institutions (i.e. language as a social practice) that relations of power become
evident and the negotiation of identities takes place. These discursive interactions have
been theoretically framed in different ways by researchers; for example, some refer to
people positioning themselves during social interaction (Bamberg, 1997), others see the
identification processes as performance (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005) and others suggest
that it is through narrative, i.e. through the (co)telling of stories, that identities are con-
structed (Rugen, 2013).
This article examines the complex interrelationship between identity, language and
power, and it makes the case for a narrative approach to understanding this interrelation-
ship. I present and analyse two narratives, one a full entry from a teacher journal written
by an in-service teacher as part of a graduate course assignment, and the other an excerpt,
which I call a ‘short story’, from an interview with a high school ESL teacher. The first
narrative is analysed according to a typical content or thematic analysis approach, an
approach commonly used by student teachers in teacher education programs (see Johnson
and Golombek, 2011). The second narrative, the short story, is also analysed for content,
but this time I introduce an approach which encourages a more systematic in-depth anal-
ysis of narrative dimensions and the varying scales of context in which the stories are
lived and told.
In the next section I provide a rationale for exploring the concept of teacher identity in
language teacher education (see Pennington and Richards, this issue). I then provide a brief
overview of narrative inquiry. In the section after that I attempt to show how narrative
inquiry relates to identity, and do so in the form of a broad description or definition of
identity (from Norton, 2013). In the latter part of the article I analyse the two narratives; the
teacher journal entry and the short story from the high school teacher interview. I end by
commenting on the relevance of narrative identity research to language teacher education.

Identity in Language Teaching

Before addressing definitions of identity and the various perspectives taken in identity
research, we should first ask why the study of identity and an awareness of identity issues
Barkhuizen 27

are important for language teachers. Why has there recently been such an accelerated
interest in things to do with identity? What purpose is served by exploring and by being
aware of teacher identity?
In some classrooms teachers follow a syllabus which may be prescribed by depart-
ments, institutions or even governments. They use certain approaches to teaching,
such as communicative language teaching or task-based language teaching, and they
assess their learners according to the requirements of the syllabus (i.e. they test what
has been taught). In other classrooms teachers have more flexibility to choose the
content of what they teach and to design their own teaching and assessment materials.
In both cases, and in the many other possible classroom teaching arrangements, teach-
ers are not merely technicians who carry out their work without thinking about what
they do. Over the years, the study of language teaching and teacher education has
acknowledged this, and the current focus on teacher cognitions (i.e. their thinking,
beliefs, attitudes, and decision-making) is evidence of this shift (see Borg, 2006).
Teachers, however, are not only cognitive beings, they are also social beings. Inside
their classrooms they interact with their learners, they develop relationships with
them, and together they construct sociocultural worlds in which they live their teacher
and learner lives together. Outside their classrooms teachers engage with other teach-
ers, other learners, and with administrators in their schools. And even further afield,
they are members of many other communities, personal and professional, local and
global. Teachers perceived as thinking and social people, then, are not merely imple-
menters of a syllabus or instructors of a linguistic skill like robots in a factory. It fol-
lows, therefore, that

in order to understand language teaching and learning we need to understand teachers; and in
order to understand teachers, we need to have a clearer sense of who they are; the professional,
cultural, political, and individual identities which they claim or which are assigned to them
(Varghese et al., 2005: 22).

Researchers have focused their work on a number of teacher identity issues, and their
findings have important implications for curriculum design, classroom practice, and
teacher education programmes. For example, one significant area of interest has been
‘non-native speaker’ teachers of English and their comparison with ‘native speaker’
teachers. Labels such as these are problematic when used to signify and essentialize the
ethnicity of language learners. They are no less problematic when used to reference
language teacher identities. Of particular concern has been the naming (or labelling) of
‘non-native speaker’ teachers, their status in schools and the profession, and their class-
room practices. Some of the key questions asked about them, especially in comparison
with ‘native speaker’ teachers, include: Who are they? What should they be called? What
do they call themselves? In what parts of the world do they teach, and under what condi-
tions? How do they feel about being ‘non-native speaker’ teachers? How are they per-
ceived by ‘native speaker’ teachers? How are they perceived by (their) language learners?
How are they perceived by (potential) employers? How do they see themselves? How do
their classroom practices differ from those of ‘native speaker’ teachers? What advan-
tages do they have over ‘native speaker’ teachers?
28 RELC Journal 47(1)

Just as researchers are interested in studying and learning about teacher identities, so
too are teachers. Writing about teacher professional identities, Watson (2006: 510)
reminds us that ‘who we think we are influences what we do’. Consequently, teachers
have been encouraged to reflect on their practice at the various stages of their careers in
order to discover who they think they are (Farrell, 2015). Pre-service teachers, for
instance, often participate in reflective activity, such as writing journals about their
teaching practicum experiences. In some cases, these are shared with other pre-service
teachers or with their teacher educators and a dialogue may follow. Typically some sort
of analysis of the journal entries also takes place. In my own in-service graduate classes,
teachers write narratives of their teaching and language learning experiences. These are
analysed for the purposes of reflection and course assessment. Teachers who are not
participants in formal professional development programmes have also been encouraged
not only to reflect on their own practice (i.e. to be reflective practitioners), but also to
engage in what is called teacher research (Borg, 2013) i.e. to systematically investigate,
either independently or in collaboration with other teachers or researchers, aspects of
their professional lives, often in the form of action research projects. The purpose of
these reflective and research activities is for teachers to explore and to understand their
ongoing identity (re)construction, at all stages of their careers. As MacLure (1993: 311)
explains, they are a ‘resource that people use to explain, justify and make sense of them-
selves in relation to others, and to the world at large’. And what teachers know about
themselves – their personal histories, their ideologies, their language use, the kind of
person they are, how others perceive them – affects their professional practice and their
understanding of the power relationships that exist among themselves, their learners and
members of the wider community.

Narrative Inquiry
Narrative inquiry is a way of doing research that focuses on the stories we tell about our
lives. These stories are about our experiences of life; the meaning we make of the events
we live or imagine in our future lives. Kramp (2004: 107) says that stories ‘assist humans
to make life experiences meaningful. Stories preserve our memories, prompt our reflec-
tions, connect us to our past and present, and assist us to envision our future’. In other
words, stories are not merely a list of facts about the things we do, the people we do them
with, where and when we do them, they also embody our understandings of those events
as well as express our feelings about them. Experiences become narratives when we tell
them to an audience and narratives become part of narrative inquiry when they are exam-
ined for research purposes or generated to report the findings of an inquiry.
A narrative turn in recent years has meant that in TESOL and applied linguistics
researchers have begun to understand the importance of paying attention to how lan-
guage teachers and learners use stories to make sense of their experience. Researchers
learn about these experiences from the participants’ own perspectives. Barkhuizen,
Benson and Chik (2014), more specifically, suggest four explanations for this narrative
turn. First, narrative inquiry has an intuitive appeal to researchers who have ‘become
weary of variables and the quantification of the positivistic approach’ (Josselson, 1993:
xv). It is thus part of a broader turn towards qualitative research and away from the
assumption that psychological, social and educational phenomena should be investigated
Barkhuizen 29

in much the same way that scientists investigate natural phenomena. Second, interest in
narratives reflects postmodern concerns with the self, identity and individuality, signal-
ling a turn away from the quest for general social theories that would enable social sci-
entists to predict human behaviour. Third, a related explanation is the importance that
narrative has acquired as a resource that individuals draw upon in the construction of
their identities. The stories they tell help researchers understand the ways in which they
situate themselves and their activities in the world. Lastly, Barkhuizen et al., (2014) point
out that an interest in narrative has been linked to a turn towards the idea that research
should both involve and empower the people whose experiences are the subject of
research. Narrative inquiry expands the range of voices that are heard in research reports,
often highlighting the experiences of marginalized groups (Hayes, 2013).
Various methods for collecting and analysing data and for reporting the findings of
research are associated with the process of what I call narrative knowledging
(Barkhuizen, 2011: 395), which is ‘the meaning making, learning, or knowledge con-
struction that takes place during the narrative research activities of (co)constructing
narratives, analyzing narratives, reporting the findings, and reading/watching/listening
to research reports’. As this definition implies, different participants engage in narrative
knowledging at various mutually informing stages of the research process, including
(co)narrators (which could include the researcher), researchers, and consumers of
research reports. From this wide range of research methods associated with narrative
inquiry (see Barkhuizen, 2015), I choose two types of analysis to illustrate below – a
thematic analysis and a short story analysis – because these, I believe, are feasible for
teacher reflection and research. But first, I explore in more detail the concept of identity
and its relationship with narrative.

Identity and Narrative Inquiry

So far in this article I have not attempted a definition of identity, though I have begun to
show how it relates to narrative and storytelling. In this section, some of the comments
made already about identity are recapped within the context of a discussion of Norton’s
(2013) summary description of identity. Pulling these points together will serve as an
extended definition of identity. And this is probably the best approach, since identity is a
notoriously difficult concept to define. One reason is that theoretical perspectives have
changed over time reflecting changing philosophical trends in the social and human sci-
ences. Also, researchers working in different disciplines (e.g. education, second language
acquisition, psychology) have varying ideas about how identity should be conceptual-
ized and operationalized in their work. In spite of the challenges of coming up with a
definition of identity, Norton’s (2013) description is a very clear and useful summary of
recent poststructuralist thinking about identity, and it has much in common with narra-
tive interpretations of identity; i.e. how identities are constructed in narrative and how
narrative researchers approach the study of identity. I have underlined a few phrases
(1-6) which are discussed below the extract.

I use the term identity to reference how a person understands his or her relationship to the
world,1 how that relationship is constructed across time and space,2 and how the person
understands possibilities for the future.3 I argue that SLA [second language acquisition] theory
30 RELC Journal 47(1)

needs to develop a conception of identity that is understood with reference to larger, and
frequently inequitable, social structures4 which are reproduced in day-to-day social interaction.5
In taking this position, I foreground the role of language as constitutive of and constituted by6
a language learner’s identity. … It is through language that a person negotiates a sense of self
within and across different sites at different points in time (Norton, 2013: 45).

Relationship to the World

Identities are constructed within social relationships between people; people with atti-
tudes, beliefs, expectations and assumptions, in local communities (e.g. through face-to-
face interactions such as storytelling), and in global communities (e.g. through stories
shared in social media on the internet). We relate not only to people in the world, how-
ever, but also to social structures which take the form of institutions, policies, cultural
practices, laws, and so on. In educational contexts, examples on a micro scale include the
syllabus and teachers’ pedagogical practices in classrooms. On the macro scale, educa-
tion policies, language policies and curriculum frameworks make up these structures.
How people understand their relationship to these people and structures shapes their
identities. Not only is the construction of their identities influenced by these social struc-
tures, however, they have agency to locate and position themselves within and possibly
change those structures. This is done discursively, through means such as storytelling.
Stories enable us to represent our experiences, including our identities, but they also, in
the telling, re-shape those experiences and identities. This perspective is quite different
from essentialist perspectives on identity which tend to emphasize the biological make-
up of people, for example their sex and skin colour, or other ‘static’ classifications such
as country of birth and social group membership (national, ethnic and religious, for
example), where both they and all members of the group then become defined in a delim-
ited, rigid way, with external definitions imposed upon them.

Constructed across Time and Space

In contrast to essentialist views on identity, the idea that identities are constructed across
time and space implies that they are fluid and changeable. People’s identities are con-
structed in relationship to the world at different times (including their histories and imag-
ined futures) and in different spaces (both real and imagined, including physical locations
and metaphorical spaces). Once again, the times and places can be experienced on both
micro and macro scales. For instance, time can be quite a lengthy period, such as one’s
entire lifespan, or it can be only a short moment, such as an informal conversation lasting
only a few seconds or a question briefly answered in a classroom. Identities also change
in spaces that are micro (e.g. a one-on-one discussion between teacher and learner) and
macro (e.g. participating in an international internet chat room). What we have here,
then, is a complex, ongoing (re)arranging of the dimensions of time and space – which is
the world that people relate to when constructing their identity, or more accurately identi-
ties, since within these dynamic temporal and spatial arrangements people inevitably
have multiple identities. Mention of time and space immediately brings to mind recog-
nized dimensions of narrative. Stories unfold over time and are lived and told in physical
Barkhuizen 31

and social spaces, and our identities are negotiated and constructed during the process of
both living in the storyworld and the telling in the discourse world.

Possibilities for the Future

How people imagine themselves in the future relates very much to how they understand
who they are in the present. For language learners, this has implications not only for how
they make sense of who they are as language learners but also for how they go about their
learning. As Kanno and Norton say, ‘what has not yet happened in the future can be a
reason and motivation for what learners do in the present’ (2003: 248). And the same
applies to language teachers. Teachers in training imagine themselves as members of
future imagined communities of teachers working in classrooms and schools; they con-
struct imagined identities in those communities, a process which has implications for
how they go about doing their teacher education work and constructing their identities in
the present (Pavlenko, 2003). The stories we tell about our lives do not only tell of past
experiences, they also locate ourselves and our identities in imagined communities. The
imagined stories teachers live enable them to reflect on future possibilities for their prac-
tice and their students’ learning.
Barkhuizen (2010) investigated the imagined identity of a pre-service teacher in New
Zealand, called Sela. We will hear about her experiences of teacher education later in this
article when I analyse a short story excerpt of an interview with her. Sela was an immi-
grant from the Pacific Island of Tonga. During her pre-service teacher preparation she
imagined that she would eventually teach English to other adults from the same Tongan
immigrant community where she lived. In fact, she said she invested in language teacher
education with the expectation that her university studies and, specifically her teacher
training, would yield returns for herself, her family and the Tongan immigrant commu-
nity. She wished for a better life for all of them, with education and secure jobs that
would be more easily accessible with higher levels of English proficiency. Drawing on
the work of Bourdieu, Norton Peirce (1995; Norton, 2013) developed the concept of
investment, saying, ‘if learners invest in a second language, they do so with the under-
standing that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which
will in turn increase the value of their cultural capital’ (1995: 17). What this means is that
through investing in an additional language (particularly the language which has value in
a community, such as English for immigrants in New Zealand) learners hope to acquire
certain resources which have value for them.

Inequitable, Social Structures

To sum up so far, identities are constructed in relationships with people and social struc-
tures on both micro and macro scales. As we will see in the two narratives below, these
social structures are frequently inequitable; that is, there are people and social structures
that have more value or power than others. Those who find themselves in disempowered
positions are denied access to the very resources they need or desire to become success-
ful, legitimate, valued members of society. Of course, for those who have power, and
who want to keep it, this is an ideal situation. They want to maintain the status quo, and
32 RELC Journal 47(1)

so do not want any inequitable relations of power to be revealed; the ideologies underly-
ing their relative positions ‘are a means of legitimising existing social relations and dif-
ferences of power, simply through the recurrence of ordinary, familiar ways of behaving
which take these relations of power differences for granted’ (Fairclough, 1989: 2).
Teacher reflection and teacher research through (auto)biographical methodologies such
as written teacher journals, digital storytelling and narrative frames (Barkhuizen, 2014)
are ideal ways of unravelling and exposing these complex relations of power.

Day-to-day Social Interaction

Poststructuralist pronouncements on identity claim that identity construction is a discur-
sive activity; it is something we do in interaction with others (using language and other
semiotic means such as gestures, facial expressions and digital technology) in particular
social contexts. Norton (2013) makes the point in her definition above that the inequita-
ble social structures that people are involved in are reproduced in day-to-day discursive
interaction, including storytelling; i.e. they are embedded in the story co-construction
and therefore have an influence on the trajectory and identity outcomes of the interac-
tion. It is clear, therefore, that when we talk about identity, we mean doing identity (it is
relational) rather than being or having an identity (it is interior and fixed, or something
we possess). Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) comment on the language used in the iden-
tity literature to describe the process of identification. They identify a number of ‘action’
words which reflect the dynamic, active nature of identity construction; these include
development, construction, formation, negotiation, identity-making, creating, shaping
and building. Whichever term is chosen, the process it describes occurs only when peo-
ple engage in social interaction.

Language as Constitutive of and Constituted By

Norton’s (2013) definition of identity emphasizes very forcefully the role that language
plays in identity construction. Language is central in understanding the relationship
between individuals and the social world (i.e. the people and social structures they inter-
act with). Language connects people to the social, and it is through language therefore
that people negotiate a sense of self. Weedon (cited in Norton Peirce, 1995:15) says that
language is ‘the place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity, is constructed’, and
this includes the language of storytelling, whether it be oral interaction such as conversa-
tions, written reflections in teacher diaries, or multimodal posts on Facebook. Ivanič
(2006: 22) agrees, saying that ‘language is a means of identification’, and adds that lan-
guage is a mark of identification. It is also an object of identification; we learn the lan-
guage or variety of language of the community we wish to become a member of (i.e.
communities we want to identify or affiliate with).

Narrative One: Teacher Journal Entry

Roxanne is an English teacher at university level in New Zealand. She embarked on a
graduate programme to enhance her teaching qualifications. The programme consisted
Barkhuizen 33

of numerous courses and a research dissertation. In one of her classes, which I taught,
she was required to write a series of personal narratives in which she reflected on her
teaching experiences in relation to what was being covered in the course (on sociolin-
guistics and language teaching). The narratives were analysed by the students, using a
general thematic analytical approach, as part of the course assessment. Polkinghorne’s
(1995) distinction between analysis of narratives and narrative analysis is useful for
conceptualizing different approaches to both analysing and reporting narrative data.
These two approaches correspond to the two ways of knowing (i.e. two kinds of cogni-
tion or ways of organizing experience) described by Bruner (1986). One of these
Bruner called paradigmatic cognition, which entails ‘classifying a particular instance
as belonging to a category or concept’ (Polkinghorne, 1995: 9). Sense is made of the
world by looking for similarities among things and then grouping them as members of
the same category. Thematic or content analyses (Hayes, 2013; Riessman, 2008) fol-
low the paradigmatic procedures of coding for themes, categorizing these and looking
for patterns of association among them. Three main themes are evident in Rozanne’s
narrative.
In her narrative (used with permission), Roxanne tells of an incident which occurred
in her workplace. The incident was sparked by her superior, the coordinator of her pro-
gramme, saying to her, ‘Don’t worry about it, baby. It’s all under control’, in response to
Roxanne’s question addressed to him concerning an aspect of her work. Roxanne was
shocked by his comment, but she did not merely accept or ignore it; she resisted and
challenged it, declaring, ‘I am not his Asian baby!’ The narrative illustrates very well
how the use of language in interaction, by all participants in the story, and relations of
power work together to generate a space for the negotiation of identity. Ethnic and gen-
der identities are perhaps most evident in Roxanne’s narrative, but these cannot be con-
sidered separately from her professional, teacher identity. Her story, after all, takes place
in a learning/teaching community.

Earlier this year, the manager at work asked me in passing whether I had completed my student
reports. This was done in a casual, non-threatening manner; however, I found it quite unusual,
considering I had already placed the reports on the coordinator’s desk earlier that morning.
Thinking that perhaps the disk was misplaced, I asked the coordinator, whom I shall refer to
from now on as the unprofessional bastard (UB), whether he had received the disk I placed on
his desk. I made the point of enquiring in a casual, non-threatening manner. Thus, during lunch
time when we were casually sitting around having lunch, I asked, “UB, did you get the student
reports I put on your desk?”

To my horror and disgust, he replied: “Don’t worry about it, baby. It’s all under control.”

The above comment must be seen in context. Firstly, UB knew I was not joking and I knew
very well he was not joking due to his stern facial expression. Secondly, my interaction with
UB at work is exactly that – a working relationship. Hence, there was no prior context
established which justifies his use of such a personal term – a term which deeply disgusted me
because “baby” is loaded with a lot of negative connotations. For me, such a term strongly
suggests that whoever is at the receiving end is thought of as helpless, and a thing/object. It
disgusted me because it also has a very strong sexual connotation!
34 RELC Journal 47(1)

Later that afternoon, I was in the photocopy room at work. I tried desperately to focus on my
lesson preparation because I did not want my work performance to decline in any way due to
sexist language. At some point, UB came into the room. He decided to make small-talk with me
and asked me what I did over the weekend. I said that I went to the video shop and borrowed
DVDs, but felt angry with the guy at the video shop because he called me “love”, as in “Yes,
love?” when I approached the desk to borrow DVDs. UB’s response to me was a bewildered,
“Why? I call my wife and daughter, love”.

At this point, I felt very disgusted because I knew UB could not possibly be that stupid or maybe
he is? Does he not know that I am hinting at my disapproval of his previous comment? Does he
not realize that I am not his wife, or daughter? Why is he placing me in the same category as his
“wife?” I was not really angry with the guy at the video shop although I know some women will
have zero tolerance to such language. However, the guy at the video shop is not my “superior” at
work. Likewise, the social context is different. The guy at the video shop is not a language teacher
who perhaps does not know any better. Furthermore, the way he called me “love” was not
“creepy” but more casual and “matter-of-factly.” The intention was more “what can I do for
you?”, rather than a put down.

I resolved this issue by showing UB that I am not his Asian baby! or any one else’s. The
manager, UB and I had a meeting. I came prepared to the meeting. UB’s defense was that he
was only joking and that I was “too sensitive”. So, I raised issues of professional communication
styles and respect. I also had EVIDENCE. Just weeks earlier, UB left a written message for me,
pertaining to a work matter; however, he drew a large love heart on it!!!!!!! At that time, I asked
UB about the meaning of the message because it was disgusting and a bit confusing. He proudly
told me with a coy smile on his face, like a schoolboy that HE was the one who drew the love
heart. I quickly bolted out of his office with feelings of fear and predominantly disgust.
However, I kept this piece of paper because I knew that one day I would need it for self-
defence. Why had I not done something about this written message before? Who do people
usually take seriously, a coordinator or “a teacher”?

During the meeting, UB said that he always treats me with respect. He had such a belligerent,
patronizing attitude, so I intervened by holding up the piece of paper with the love heart on it
and said, “Is this respect? This is not respect!” I stated that UB does not treat any one else at
work with that kind of “respect.” As soon as I held up the piece of paper with the love heart on
it, UB was so humiliated and could not deny he wrote the letter or drew the love heart because
he had signed the piece of paper. At the end of the meeting he was crying, like a baby, not
because he was sorry but because an Asian baby put him in his place!!

I requested to teach in another program with a different coordinator and it is working out
wonderfully. UB’s behaviour towards me has changed to one which is a bit more professional.
Although this is one of the proudest moments of my life, it has left me a bit cynical, wary and
sad because it reinforced for me that sometimes, unfortunately, the only way to negotiate one’s
identity to one of basic respect is for the situation to get confrontational, to say the least; basic
respect that others take for granted or do not have to fight for.

The storyline in Roxanne’s written narrative is as follows: the manager of the school
asks her if she has finished writing the student reports; she knows she has but confirms
that all is in order with her coordinator; the coordinator passes the ‘baby’ remark that
Barkhuizen 35

offends her; she struggled to concentrate on her lesson preparation; later, in the photo-
copy room, she tells the coordinator about the way the worker in the video shop speaks
to her; the coordinator does not realize that Roxanne is commenting on the way that he
talks to her; she requests a meeting with the coordinator and the manager of the school to
discuss the issues raised by the coordinator’s communication style when speaking to
Roxanne in the school; at the meeting, the coordinator admits that he was the one who
sent Roxanne a message with a ‘love heart’ drawn on it; Roxanne requests to be placed
in another programme with a different coordinator.
Roxanne tells the story very much as I have just outlined, but throughout she makes
evaluative comments about the events that took place. These evocative comments reveal
not only her emotive responses to the events but also the meaning she makes in her nar-
rative of what was going on: i.e. how she interpreted the language and other semiotic
resources (e.g. the image of the heart) in relation to both the relations of power between
herself and the coordinator and her identities as a woman, a teacher and a member of a
particular ethnic group.

Language
Roxanne finds the coordinator’s ‘baby’ comment offensive. Her evaluative comments
show how strongly she felt about what he said and also the reason for her emotional
response: She exclaims, ‘To my horror and disgust’, and continues, ‘It disgusted me
because it also has a very strong sexual connotation!’ The sexual reference relates to the
coordinator being an older male and, accompanied by the note with the heart drawn on
it, it is no wonder Roxanne became concerned about exactly what his intentions were.
Besides these personal apprehensions, Roxanne believes that the language used by the
coordinator was not appropriate for the workplace. During the meeting with the manager,
for instance, she ‘raised issues of professional communication styles and respect’; the
issues obviously having to do with linguistic choices and how those choices do or do not
show respect for others working in the school.

Power
Respect also relates to power. Cummins argues that relations of power influence ways in
which educators define their roles in different contexts. He says, ‘coercive relations of
power refer to the exercise of power by a dominant individual, group, or country to
the detriment of a subordinate individual, group or country’ (2009: 263). In this case,
the coordinator is Roxanne’s ‘superior’ (to use her word). Institutionally, he holds a more
powerful position, a coordinator role. But the way he performs his interactions associ-
ated with that role show Roxanne no respect, as a teacher or as a person, and certainly
positions her detrimentally. The coercive power relationship in which the coordinator
and Roxanne are engaged reflects the coordinator’s expectations and assumptions that
relate to his role (Cummins, 2009). Roxanne, as it turns out, is not satisfied to be on the
receiving end of his actions. She resists and challenges the nature of the coercive power
relationship, as is clearly seen in some of the language she uses in her narrative: ‘I
36 RELC Journal 47(1)

resolved this issue’, ‘I also had EVIDENCE’, ‘so I intervened by holding up the piece of
paper’, ‘an Asian baby put him in his place’, and ‘the only way … is for the situation to
get confrontational’. Roxanne’s resistance had its own set of expectations and assump-
tions; she succeeded in getting transferred to another programme, but perhaps more sat-
isfying for her was achieving a sort of role reversal – it was the coordinator who ended
up ‘crying, like a baby’.

Identities
Roxanne’s narrative shows that her gender and ethnic identities are contested in her
social interactions with the coordinator. Her image of what kind of woman she is appears
to be vastly different from that of the coordinator. Roxanne opposes his use of the word
baby because, as she says, it signifies someone who is ‘helpless, and a thing/object’. She
does not want to be seen as his baby, and particularly not his ‘Asian baby’, with the ste-
reotypical image of Asian women being passive and subservient further emphasizing a
disempowered identity. In the midst of these gender and ethnic identity conflicts,
Roxanne is concerned about performing her professional teacher identity in the way that
she wants to. It may appear as though her experience with the coordinator has little to do
with the classroom. But Roxanne says, ‘I tried desperately to focus on my lesson prepa-
ration because I did not want my work performance to decline in any way due to sexist
language’. If Roxanne is undermined or disempowered in the school then her teacher
identity and her practice in the classroom is also affected. As Watson (2006: 510) says,
‘there is a link between professional identity and professional action’.

Narrative Two: A Short Story

The second narrative is an excerpt from an interview with an English teacher in New
Zealand, called Sela (see Barkhuizen, 2010, for an earlier study with the same teacher). She
emigrated from the Pacific Island of Tonga as a young adult and embarked on university
studies completing an MA in language teaching, after which she enrolled in a graduate
diploma in teaching. The diploma required two periods of practicum teaching in high
schools. In the short story, from an interview with Sela a few years after completing the
practicum, she tells of an incident which occurred in one of the schools. I call such an
extract a ‘short story’. When reporting research findings from a thematic analysis we often
use short excerpts of data to illustrate themes found in data, but these are not short stories,
since they have an illustrative purpose rather than being analysed in their own right. Short
stories are excerpts of data extracted from a larger set of data such as conversations, inter-
views, written narratives, and multimodal digital stories. They are analysed in detail for
both content and context and in relation to few other short stories. The fact that short stories
can be extracts from lengthy, reflective journal data or research interview data and that their
analysis focuses on their content rather than primarily on performance and linguistic
aspects of narrative distinguishes them from ‘small stories’ (Georgakoploulou, 2006).
In terms of content, attention is systematically paid in the analysis to three intersect-
ing dimensions of narrative: who, or the characters in the story, their relationships and
their positions vis-à-vis each other; where, or the places and sequences of places in which
Barkhuizen 37

the story action takes place; and when, or the time in which the action unfolds, past, pre-
sent and future. In terms of context or scales, I have suggested (Barkhuizen, 2008) three
interconnected levels of story (or contextual spaces) which not only help guide analysis
but also encourage the researcher to look beyond the immediate contexts of teachers in
their classrooms. The first level of story (all small letters) is personal and embodies the
inner thoughts, emotions, ideas and theories of the teachers. It includes the social interac-
tions in the teachers’ immediate contexts, for example, during classroom lessons, during
conversations with students, and in teacher journals. The second level of Story (with a
capital S) spreads wider than the immediate psychological and inter-personal context of
teachers. Included here are interactions with institutional members outside the class-
room, consequences of decisions made typically by others in the work environment, as
well as their attitudes, expectations and prescriptions: e.g. a school’s language-in-educa-
tion policy and assessment practices. At this level of Story, teachers usually have less
agency to construct their practice, their identities and their stories. Lastly, STORY (in
capital letters) refers to the broader sociopolitical contexts in which teaching and learn-
ing takes place. Here teachers have even less power to make decisions about conditions
which influence their practice. Examples of STORIES include national language policies,
and curriculums imposed on schools by Ministries of Education. The use of capital let-
ters to refer to this level of STORY merely signifies a wider, macro scale and the power
often associated with it. The interconnecting dimensions of the story content (who,
where, when) and the three scales of context interact together to generate a narrative
space within which identities are constructed and short story analysis is conducted.
In the short story, Sela tells of how one day in the school where she was doing her
practicum she was mistaken for a cleaner in the staff room because of her Pacific Islander
(Tongan) appearance. She had not exchanged any words with the other characters in the
story – other teachers at the school – and since they did not know her they assumed she
was a cleaner operating the dishwasher. Her Tongan, ‘non-white’ appearance and the
association of Pacific Islanders with lower status jobs meant that the teachers in the
school misinterpreted Sela’s role and her student-teacher identity. Unfortunately, this
incident is what she remembers most about her practicum experience.

Sela: I had really really good associates you know

they really really looked after me
[name of high socioeconomic school] was I mean I live in [name of lower
socioeconomic suburb] you know
and [name of school] was quite it was just different
I mean just you know there were Islanders there
but very white sort of culture
it was actually quite funny
because I was in the kitchen
and I went to after the break and I went to take my cup you know return my
cup to put in the dishwasher
and I was just standing there
and everybody smiled alongside me and thanked me
they thanked me [laughs in voice]
38 RELC Journal 47(1)

Gary: oh oh that’s funny

S: [laughs]
G for doing the dishes
S: yes [laughs in voice]
oh yeah it was quite a joke you know it lasted for quite a while
G: yeah oh my goodness
S: yeah yeah
G: very different kind of school
S: yeah not a single not a single Pasifika teacher when I was there
G: mmmm
S: that’s what I remember most about my practicum [laughs in voice]
it was memorable for the wrong reasons
G: exactly
S: yeah quite an eye opener

I now provide an illustrative analysis of this short story, using the content dimensions
of who, where and when to structure my discussion. I include commentary on the three
story scales of context (story, Story, STORY).
Who: Sela, as narrator, is the main character in the short story. She is an immigrant
from Tonga living in New Zealand, and a pre-service student teacher completing the
practicum component of her graduate diploma in education. The other characters in
the story world are the following: (1) First mentioned in the story are her ‘associ-
ates’, the teachers who mentored her during the practicum, and who play no signifi-
cant part in the story except that we hear they did a good job of looking after Sela.
Later in the story Sela says that all teachers in the school are white, and so this would
include her associate teachers. (2) The ‘white sort of culture’ refers to the demo-
graphic make-up of the school community, and reflects the socioeconomic status of
the school and the suburb in which it is located. (3) ‘Islander’ students are those who
come from or whose heritage is linked to the Pacific Islands. Sela strongly associates
with this community and notes that there were only a few Islander students within
the overwhelmingly white school community. (4) There are no Pasifika teachers in
the school community, so they appear as absent but significant characters in the
story. (5) ‘Everybody’ references the other teachers in the school, those whom Sela
confronts in the kitchen at the dishwasher, and the characters in the story who are
central to the critical incident which contests Sela’s sense of self. By considering
who the characters are in this story and their relationships – how they relate to each
other – we are already (at this early stage of analysis) beginning to develop an under-
standing of Sela’s identities, particularly those ascribed to her by others. Sela’s story
makes it clear that she rejects those identities, however: she laughs when she thinks
back to the experience, calling the teachers’ act of ‘mistaken identity’ a joke, saying
it was ‘quite funny’. Sela, in the telling of the short story, positions the various char-
acters and their identities, including her own, according to a set of contrasting rela-
tionships, at the same time as the teachers in the storyworld position Sela outside of
their white, middle-class school-world. On the one side, then, we have Sela and the
communities she identifies with; Pacific Islander, living in a lower socioeconomic
Barkhuizen 39

suburb, and a student teacher. And on the other we have members of the sociocultur-
ally different white school community.
Where: The central action of the story unfolds in the kitchen of the high socioeco-
nomic school. Sela mentions the lower socioeconomic suburb in which she lives to
establish a contrast between her life (and social class) and that of the members of the
school community. On a larger scale, beyond the school and suburb, Sela establishes a
connection with the Pacific Island countries by referencing the few students and no
teachers at the (New Zealand) school who are identified as Islanders. Again, this contrast
foregrounds Sela’s perceived (or reflexive) identities; student teacher (not cleaner),
Pacific Islander (not white), migrant (not born New Zealander), and living in a lower not
high status socioeconomic suburb where the school is located.
When: The critical incident described in the story takes place over a very short period
of time – a few smiles and thank-yous offered at the dishwasher in the kitchen. However,
Sela says that the ‘joke’ lasted ‘quite a while’, a joke she probably shared with family and
friends, and years later Sela still remembers the incident. In fact, it’s what she remembers
most about her practicum to this day. The story thus covers a fairly long time scale, and
will continue in Sela’s memory and probably be re-told in the future as well. Historically,
as well, the story of Pacific Islander immigration to New Zealand and white New
Zealander and Pacific Islander interaction is a long one. Sela’s story is one small moment
embedded in that continuing long-term story involving the two groups, each constituted
and defined in diverse ways.
Even this preliminary, illustrative analysis of the short story narrative space created
by the intersecting who-where-when dimensions and the varying levels of context scales
has shown us quite a lot about Sela’s identity experiences of becoming a teacher. Through
her interactions with the teachers in the kitchen she is positioned as ‘cleaner’ (and the
socioeconomic status that goes with that role), ‘migrant’ and ‘non-white’. These identi-
ties become more or less salient during the interaction and also in the telling of the story.
Sela is not recognized as a student teacher on her practicum even though this is the iden-
tity that she reflexively assigns to herself while at the school. Student teacher is already
a less powerful position vis-à-vis full-time, experienced, employed teacher, the type of
teacher Sela encounters in the kitchen, but cleaner is arguably even more marginalized
within the school context (and probably beyond). So, in this short story we see a clash of
identity displays, non-compatibility between conceptions of self and identities recog-
nized or ascribed by others, and identities constantly shifting over the course of the nar-
rative. Short story analysis with its focus on systematic attention to the dimensions of
story has generated a good understanding of Sela’s identities. Analysis of further short
stories in Sela’s ongoing teacher development would reveal even more about her identity
negotiation and construction.

Conclusion
In the first half of this article I presented a theoretical overview of the concept of identity,
particularly focusing on poststructuralist conceptions of what identity means, and showed
how these ideas can be associated with ideas about narrative and narrative inquiry. I
argued that it is important for teachers, through reflective practice or teacher research, to
40 RELC Journal 47(1)

become aware of and understand their professional identities because doing so has impli-
cations for their practice (Farrell, 2015; Varghese, et al., 2005). Asking questions such as
the following will allow teachers to make connections between who they are (how they
see themselves) and what they do in their classrooms, schools, and beyond: Who am I?
Who was I? Who do I want to be? Why am I this way? How did I get to be this way? How
does who I am relate to my professional practice?
In the second half of the article I illustrated two ways of analysing narrative data;
the first, a content or thematic analysis of a written teacher journal entry, and the sec-
ond, a short story analysis of an extract of an interview. Although these analyses were
carried out by me, a researcher, the same methods could be used by teachers, either as
an activity in a teacher education course, or as independent reflective/research work.
Such methods could also be used in collaboration with teacher colleagues (see Banegas,
2012); for example, by analysing each other’s stories, or jointly analysing the stories,
and even co-constructing stories in conversations or mutual interviews for later analy-
sis. Roxanne’s narrative was one she wrote as part of a teacher education course assign-
ment. In analysing this narrative, together with a few others, she engaged with what
she thought about her professional self in relation to others in a real working context.
She thus began to make sense of her place and role in that context and how her identi-
ties related to her practice. Sela did not systematically analyse her interview short
story, though my continuing conversations with her about her teaching experiences,
which include the two of us looking closely at the narrative data we generate together,
means that she has the opportunity to step back from her busy teaching life to consider
her place within it and how that relates to what she does as a professional both now and
in the future.
I end this article by suggesting a number of teacher identity-related topics for further
research or reflection. Although there are many methods associated with narrative
inquiry, a thematic analysis or a short story approach is a good place to start.

a. Identity experiences of novice language teachers (or one novice teacher)

b. Imagined teacher identities; i.e. imagining one’s future teacher self
c. Language and power in the school context (recall Roxanne’s experience)
d. Identity in relation to aspects of professional development
e. Identity in relation to aspects of classroom practice
f. Language, identity and power in materials used in the classroom
g. Teacher identity and teacher-learner relationships
h. Teachers’ perceptions of learners’ (or a learner’s) identities
i. Teacher identities in relation to broader language-in-education policy or cur-
riculum development discourses
j. Teacher identity in (social) media; e.g. newspaper reports, blogs, Facebook,
fictional literature.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.
Barkhuizen 41

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