This article aims to explore novice teachers’ identity in nomadic regions in Tibet involving both initial identity formation and the process of identity reconstruction under the challenges and tensions in Tibet. Drawing on the phenomenological interviews, this research investigated 4 novice teachers from 2021 to 2023. The findings reveal that participants’ initial identity formations are mainly related to their social culture, political discourses and reasons for entry into the teaching profession, such as family background, employment stress and past experience as pupils etc., Challenged by the intercultural teaching, Tibetan students’ features, campus management systems, unsolvable factors of living environment and cultural heritage etc., they all reconstructed or adjusted to a low expectation-oriented identity to “survive” in the teaching profession. In this article, we argue that despite the fact that natural geography poses some unavoidable challenges to teacher identity construction, teacher education programs did not work as well as they should, and equity- and social justice-oriented teacher education programs are sorely needed in China.

From the theoretical perspective of Dialogical Self Theory (DST), this study aims to understand how novice teachers’ teacher identity is constructed in the first year of teaching through a qualitative study in Chinese K-12 school context.In this study, 3 rounds of semi-structured interviews were carried out right after these novice teachers started their initial year at school, in order to track the dynamic process of identity formation. Other data sources such as diaries and daily work schedules were also collected.

The research finds that novice teachers engage in interactions with students, school leaders, colleagues and other significant others, and different interactions prompt diverse kinds of dialogues within the individual's internal self. Through these dialogues, categorized as cooperative, conflicted and introspective ones, teachers constantly reconstructs their answers towards what it means to be a teacher, how to be an excellent teacher, etc.

A pivotal self-position identified is "I as a Teaching Specialist," which is particularly salient during the early stage of the teaching career. Novice teachers often seek to establish their expertise in pedagogy to gain confidence, and such confidence then ensures them to effectively navigate other positions such as "I as a live streamer" "I as a school administrator" or "I as a parental figure", etc.

This study provides a fresh look at the often-overlooked inner world of novice teachers, underscoring the importance of heuristic guidance from teacher educators, supportive culture within teacher community and ongoing self-reflection of novice teachers in shaping strong teacher identity with positive self-positions.

Traditionally, the role of teachers, irrespective of the subjects taught, was, roughly speaking, to instruct, control, assess, organise, observe, and constitute a resource for their students. Yet, the complexity of today’s world, with its changes (i.e. technology, AI), global and local challenges (i.e. pandemic, wars, more and more students in
need of special educational needs) and demands (the ongoing reforms, parental expectations) seems significant enough to reconsider the issue, and redefine who the teacher is (becoming) and what is expected of them. Drawing on a qualitative and interview-based study with 10 Polish experienced teachers, we conducted a thematic analysis of data in the hope of examining the tensions which are gradually building within this group of professionals. It turns out that a lot of tensions result from the conflicts between teachers’ personal values and institutional demands as well as social and structural constraints originating beyond their classroomooms. In addition, the study suggests new understandings of teacher roles that may better respond to the world’s contemporary needs.

Aims: Using a Foucauldian framework (Foucault 1983, 1985; Clarke 2009), the aim of this paper is to understand how prospective teachers construct themselves in ethico-political terms i.e., how prospective teachers construct the relationship that they have with themselves.

Theoretical Framework: Informed by Foucault (1983, 1985) and Clarke (2009), this paper addresses the ethico-political identity formation of prospective Irish primary-school teachers in terms (i) ethical substance i.e., the ways prospective teachers constitute themselves (ii) authority sources i.e., the attributed sources through which prospective teachers comes to know their ethical substance (iii) self-practices i.e., the ethical work that prospective teachers undertake to understand themselves vis-à-vis unfolding experiences and (iv) telos i.e., the mode of being the prospective teacher aspires toward.

Method: Framed within the interpretivist paradigm, this paper draws on interviews (photovoice and semi-structured interviews) with a small sample (n=4) of prospective teachers that took place at three points during the final semester of their initial teacher education. For this paper, we use indicative examples from one illustrative composite case (Seán) using data typical to each case to evidence our claims (Gleeson, 2015; Willis, 2019).

Findings: Findings illuminate prospective teacher ethico-political identity as: (i) ethical substance as the basis for nascent teacher practical knowing-in-action and pedagogical sensitivities, (ii) temporally organised authority sources (iii) dynamic and interrelated self-practices and (iv) telos as form of identity prolepsis that emphasises three major valuational endpoints.

Relevance to the Conference theme and specific strand: This paper is relevant to the conference strand ‘Equity and Inclusion in Teacher Education’ as it evidences the generativity of an ethico-political conceptualisation of identity as a way of incorporating prospective teachers sense of being into objectified teacher education processes of becoming.