Research on Teacher Identity ― Mapping Challenges and Innovations

Understanding teachers’ professional identities and their development is key to unpacking teachers’ professional lives, the quality of their instruction, their motivation and commitment to teach, and their career decision-making. This book features a number of scholars from around the world who represent a variety of disciplines, scientific paradigms, and inquiry methods in researching teacher identity. By bringing these chapters together, this volume initiates active scholarly conversations and extends the boundaries of teacher identity research and practice. This collection of chapters provides significant insight into teacher identity and will be essential reading for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, professional developers, and policy makers at various levels.

Paul A. Schutz is currently a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interests include the nature of emotion, emotional regulation, and teachers’ understandings of emotion in the classroom. He is a past president for Division 15: Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association and a former co-editor of the Educational Researcher: Research News and Comments.

Dionne Cross Francis is an associate professor of mathematics education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Indiana University and the Director of the Center for P-16 Research and Collaboration. Her research interests include investigating the relationships among psychological constructs such as beliefs, identity and emotions and how the interplay between these constructs influence teachers’ instructional decision-making prior to and during the act of teaching (mathematics).

Ji Hong an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on pre-service and in-service teachers’ professional identity development, motivation to teach, emotions, and resilience in relation to teacher retention and teacher effectiveness. She is an Associate Editor of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, and an Editorial Board member of Contemporary Educational Psychology.