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Book•

Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice: Teaching with a professional compass

Clare Brooks1•
University of London1
31 Mar 2016-
TL;DR: Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice as discussed by the authors explores how subject expertise can play a significant role in teacher identity, acting as a professional compass guiding teachers at all levels of their professional practice.
Abstract: Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice focuses on a key, but neglected, element of a teacher’s identity: that of their subject expertise. Studies of teachers’ professional practice have shown the importance of a teacher’s identity and the extent to which it can affect their resilience, commitment and ultimately their effectiveness. Drawing upon narrative research undertaken with a range of teachers over a period of 14 years, the book explores how subject expertise can play a significant role in teacher identity, acting as a professional compass guiding teachers at all levels of their professional practice. It reveals powerful individual stories of meaning-making which highlight the dynamic importance of teachers’ subject expertise The book’s metaphor of a professional compass goes to the heart of teacher professionalism, and provides a valuable mechanism to enable teachers to respond to challenges they face in their daily practice. It enables teachers to consider the moral dimensions of their practice, and can constitute a significant component in professional formation and identity. Throughout the book the importance of subject expertise for teachers’ professional practice is explored at a range of scales: from the classroom to broad education policy, and at different stages of a teacher’s career which offers readers a deeper understanding of the importance of subject expertise for teachers. Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice makes a significant contribution to an under-researched area. It identifies the role and significance of teachers’ subject expertise as a dimension of their teacher identity. The book is key reading for teacher educators, policy makers and researchers with an interest in teachers’ professional development and practice.
Citations
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Book•
Moral Thought in Educational Practice

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Hugh Sockett
10 Oct 2018

33 citations

Dissertation•
Geography Curriculum Making in Changing Times

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David Mitchell
28 Oct 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the influences on geography teachers' enactment of the curriculum and found that curriculum making is hyper-socialised whereby teachers respond to the expectations of students and school managers by drawing from others in a collaborative process.
Abstract: This research examines the influences on geography teachers’ enactment of the curriculum. Geography education has a tradition of teacher-led curriculum planning and development. However, curriculum is also linked to society and economy. Accountability in schools has intensified and there is pressure on teachers to turn their attention away from geography and toward ‘learning’. This research helps to understand how geography teachers’ make the curriculum in current times. Data from teacher interviews, lesson observations, department meetings and curriculum plans are analysed by applying the curriculum making model (Lambert and Morgan, 2010). Four case studies are presented as ‘portraits’ of curriculum enactment in contrasting geography departments. Common themes are identified inductively across the four case studies and interpreted through the theories of curriculum making (ibid) and schooling in late-capitalist society (Hartley, 1997) to draw conclusions about how curriculum making can be influenced by the changing times. The research presents an original analysis of curriculum enactment which leads to two substantive findings. The first is that curriculum making is ‘hyper-socialised’ whereby teachers respond to the expectations of students and school managers by drawing from others in a collaborative process. The second finding is that, in order to sustain themselves, teachers can turn to their identity as geography teacher to resist pressure toward managerial and technical aspects of teaching. The findings contribute to the fields of geography education and curriculum studies by providing a social-economic explanation of curriculum enactment and a model of how geography teachers’ curriculum making can thrive in the future.

23 citations

Cites background from "Teacher Subject Identity in Profess..."

  • ...Brooks (2012, 2016) and Lambert (2010b) emphasise ‘communities of practice’ in geography teachers’ work....

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  • ...95 ‘professional compass’ (Brooks, 2016) is also informative when considered alongside the argument for geographical knowledge to underpin teacher’s curriculum work to ‘resist the flow’ of the times (Firth, 2011, 2013, Lambert 2011 and Lambert and Mitchell, 2015)....

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  • ...Brooks develops the analogy of teacher as navigating changing times in her notion of the teacher’s ‘professional compass’ (Brooks, 2016)....

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  • ...In curriculum literature ‘performativity’ is used to describe how teachers and students ‘perform’ to take on the identity of ‘effective’ teacher and learner (by attaining measureable results) (Pring 2013, Brooks, 2016, 2017)....

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  • ...(Brooks, 2008: 367) Brooks develops the analogy of teacher as navigating changing times in her notion of the teacher’s ‘professional compass’ (Brooks, 2016)....

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Dissertation•DOI•
An exploration of the professional capital of authors who recontextualise knowledge about place in English A level geography textbooks

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Rawlings Smith, K C Emma-Jane
05 Feb 2020
TL;DR: This article explored the decisions authors make about place selection and knowledge and found that reflective practice plays a key role in the recontextualisation of knowledge, helping authors to utilise opportunities and deal with constraints experienced during the writing process.
Abstract: Initiated in 2014, A level curriculum reform in England was driven by the government’s desire to restore academic rigour, help bridge the school-academy divide and better prepare school leavers for the world of work, university and life in society. Reform provided the opportunity to revise A level textbooks and revive their position in the resource ecology of the classroom. Previous research on geography textbooks focuses on textbook perception and use, curriculum coverage and the representation of place. Yet, there is remarkably little research with the author, rather than textbook, as the central concern. My research fills this gap. Textbook authors are an important source of data. Drawing on communities of practice and their own accumulated knowledge and expertise, authors select, organise and transform knowledge created in the parent discipline (its methods, prevailing paradigm and knowledge) and society into a format that is appropriate for use at A level. As the discipline of geography is broad and multi-paradigmatic and the process of recontextualisation is complex, my research focuses on understanding the decisions authors make about place selection and knowledge. Place was selected as it is the most central of geographical concepts and a new core unit for the revised A level subject content. This idiographic case study research elicits the views of nine authors, with data generated using questionnaires, semistructured interviews and Q-sort. The latter is currently an under-used methodology in geography education research. By exploring themes developed through reflexive thematic analysis, findings suggest that authors draw on human, social and decisional capital developed through immersion in teaching, assessment and pedagogy. Furthermore, reflective practice is seen to play a key role in the recontextualisation of knowledge, helping authors to utilise opportunities and deal with constraints experienced during the writing process.

20 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Teaching as a research-engaged profession: Uncovering a blind spot and revealing new possibilities

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David Lambert
15 Nov 2018-London Review of Education

18 citations

Cites background from "Teacher Subject Identity in Profess..."

  • ...This is related, particularly in secondary schools, to notions of the teacher’s subject identity (Brooks, 2016) and takes us beyond a concept of the teacher as a highly skilled executive technician (Winch et al., 2013) to one that invests high levels of professional responsibility and autonomy in…...

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  • ...This is related, particularly in secondary schools, to notions of the teacher’s subject identity (Brooks, 2016) and takes us beyond a concept of the teacher as a highly skilled executive technician (Winch et al....

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  • ...A deeper appreciation of the professional knowledge required to be an effective subject-specialist teacher is essential if research engagement is to progress from the generic and the technical to offering a meaningful ‘professional compass’ (Brooks, 2016)....

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Dissertation•
Why chemistry teaching? A narrative approach

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A Dawes
28 Jul 2017
TL;DR: This article used the psychoanalytical idea of the defended participant and attempted to read between the lines to understand chemistry teachers' trajectories and the influence of their own teachers on their career decisions.
Abstract: The narrative approach used in this study is a complement to larger scale quantitative studies into teacher recruitment and suggests that chemistry teachers’ relationship with the subject and prior teaching experience can have a large part to play in them entering the profession, whilst the influence of their own teachers is more nuanced than the wider literature suggests. There have been recent international concerns over teacher recruitment and attrition rates, especially in mathematics and the physical sciences. Much has been written about the recruitment of student teachers and the reasons people give for going into teaching, but little on the broader context of these people’s lives and the complex influences on their career decisions. This study concerns eight current UK chemistry teachers and their stories of becoming teachers. These are told through interviews and examine twin research areas: namely, the key influences on becoming a teacher, and what can be learned about teacher recruitment from considering the narratives of teachers at different points in their careers. Two analytic lenses were used for these eight narratives: a broadly inductive thematic analysis and a broadly deductive analysis, using the psychoanalytical idea of the defended participant and attempting to ‘read between the lines’. These lenses were used to both exemplify and challenge each other, providing triangulation of interpretation. Results align with that of the broader literature that family background and interest in, and utility of, studying chemistry influence career life decisions, but that some people experience moments where their career trajectory changes towards teaching whereas others followed a smooth path towards this end. Particularly influential appears to be prior teaching experience which led to changes of trajectory for some of the participants in this study. The narrative approach used complements current perspectives on teaching recruitment as it seeks to consider the wider picture of a person’s life and, through a defended participant perspective, exposes influences that may not have been obvious to the participants themselves.

18 citations

Cites background from "Teacher Subject Identity in Profess..."

  • ...As Brooks (2016) points out in her book about geography teacher identity, some people just want to teach, for example Steven, one of her interviewees....

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  • ...…their interest in teaching more effectively we might see an improvement in teacher recruitment numbers in the UK and, even if not, we could improve upon the current attrition rate, where four in ten teachers leave the profession in England in their first year (Brooks, 2016), in the longer term....

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  • ...teacher recruitment numbers in the UK and, even if not, we could improve upon the current attrition rate, where four in ten teachers leave the profession in England in their first year (Brooks, 2016), in the longer term....

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  • ...Both Claire and I would say that we became teachers to remain close to our subject, something in common with two of Brooks’ (2016) subjects, Steven and Paul, whose subject knowledge influence their teacher identity strongly and permeate their practice....

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References
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Journal Article•DOI•
Pedagogy and identity in initial teacher education: developing a 'professional compass'

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Clare Brooks1•
Institute of Education1
01 Mar 2017-Geography
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that having a strong geographical identity is important for teachers and that they are best placed to do so when supported by other geography specialists, and they explore different approaches to what it means to be a good geography teacher and the pedagogical implications for teacher education.
Abstract: In response to recent trends in geography initial teacher education, this article argues why it is important for new teachers to be supported by geography specialists. In the first section the article outlines why having a strong geographical identity is important for teachers. The second section explores different approaches to what it means to be a 'good' geography teacher and the pedagogical implications for teacher education. Taken together, these two strands show how new geography teachers need to develop their disciplinary perspective on why teaching geography matters. The article argues that they are best placed to do so when supported by other geography specialists.

9 citations

"Teacher Subject Identity in Profess..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In a subsequent, related article (Brooks, 2017) should equip teachers with the tools: ‘• to understand and develop their own story in relation to their subject, and how this translates into their practice to develop a critical eye for the values expressed explicitly and implicitly by their school…...

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  • ...She concludes: ‘The role of ITE is not just to equip geography teachers with the skills they need to teach students, but also to enable them to nurture their professional compass to help them adapt and develop their professional practice throughout their careers’(Brooks, 2017, 50)....

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  • ...…their school contexts and how this relates to their own values to explore mechanisms to ensure that their subject story is nourished, grows through their professional career and does not get drowned out by the competing sacred stories told within their professional contexts’ (Brooks, 2017, p.50)....

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Teacher Subject Identity in Professional Practice emphasizes the significance of subject expertise in teacher identity, acting as a professional compass guiding practitioners at all career stages.

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