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The Indispensability and Impossibility of Teacher Identity

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Research on Teacher Identity

Abstract

For many, the term ‘teacher identity’ carries purely positive associations, as something that provides a reassuring source of professional solidarity and support. Yet identity is something of a paradoxical and problematic notion. In thinking through the problematic of identity, and its relation to teachers’ lives and work, I draw on psychoanalytic theory, where identity, far from being characterized by harmony, completeness or self-sufficiency, is a site of conflict, fragmentation, and alienation. For psychoanalysis, this alienation derives from the external location of our primary sources of identification, including imaginary identifications with the specular image of the other and symbolic identifications with the demands and desires of the Other embodied in law, language and discourse. In other words, we are never quite ‘at one’ with ourselves because the source of ourselves – our identities – lies outside us. I explore the implications for teachers of the paradoxical nature of identity as at once indispensable and impossible.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Neoliberalism is understood here as the reconfiguration of all aspects of experience in economic terms and the application of market-like rationalities of measurement, comparison and evaluation within ever-more sectors and institutions (Brown, 2015; Davies, 2014).

  2. 2.

    www.oed.com/view/Entry/91004?redirectForm=identity#eid

  3. 3.

    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/12/lesson-2016-identity-matters-even-white-people

  4. 4.

    I use the terms ‘novice teacher’ and ‘student teacher’ interchangeably in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, York St John University, York, UK

    Matthew Clarke

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  1. Matthew Clarke
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Correspondence to Matthew Clarke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Paul A. Schutz

  2. University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA

    Ji Hong

  3. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Dionne Cross Francis

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Clarke, M. (2018). The Indispensability and Impossibility of Teacher Identity. In: Schutz, P., Hong, J., Cross Francis, D. (eds) Research on Teacher Identity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93836-3_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93836-3_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-93835-6

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