ABSTRACT

Uncontested narratives of normality in primary teacher training are located and demonstrated in heteronormativity, whiteness, able-bodiedness and femininity. Early-Career Teachers who know and feel they lie outside of these are positioned uneasily as they try to locate spaces to express their identities and enable self-agency. This article explores how beginning teachers from under-represented groups come to understand themselves and others during the process of becoming a primary teacher. Through qualitative analysis of video stories of 12 novice primary teachers, we identified salient themes including dilemmas around identity invisibility/hypervisibility and lack of agency to (re)construct their identities. Our findings have implications for teacher educators and school leaders to provide new teachers opportunities to explore their identity dilemmas alongside their peers in safe spaces. Developing provision that builds beginning teachers’ peer networks alongside their understanding of self may not only offer an outlet for self-agency but impact on teacher retention from those located in under-represented groups.

摘要

小学教师培训中无可争议的常态叙述是在异性恋、白人、身体健全和女性气质中找到并表现出来的。职业生涯早期的教师知道并感觉自己处于这些之外，当他们试图寻找空间来表达自己的身份并实现自我代理时，他们会感到不安。本文探讨了来自代表性不足群体的初任教师在成为小学教师的过程中如何了解自己和他人。通过对 12 名小学新手教师的视频故事进行定性分析，我们确定了一些突出的主题，包括身份隐形/高度可见性的困境以及缺乏（重新）构建其身份的机构。我们的研究结果对教师教育工作者和学校领导具有重要意义，可以为新教师提供机会，让他们在安全的空间中与同龄人一起探索自己的身份困境。制定在新教师对自我的理解的同时建立其同伴网络的规定，不仅可以为自我代理提供一个出路，而且可以对那些代表性不足群体的教师留任产生影响。