How teachers construct their identity in higher professional education: A grounded theory study based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

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Tilburg University

How teachers construct their identity in higher professional education

Vandamme, R.C.

Publication date:

2014

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Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal

Citation for published version (APA):

Vandamme, R. C. (2014). How teachers construct their identity in higher professional education: A grounded theory study based on dialogical self theory and pattern language.

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DISSERTATION

How teachers construct

their identity in higher

professional education

A grounded theory study

based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

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How teachers construct their

identity in higher professional

education

A grounded theory study

based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

Proefschrift ter verkrijging van

de graad van doctor aan Tilburg University op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. Ph. Eijlander, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van een door

het college voor promoties aangewezen commissie in de aula van de Universiteit op

dinsdag 24 juni 2014 om 16.15 uur door

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Promotores:

Prof. dr. ir. G. M. van Dijk Prof. dr. J. B. Rijsman

Promotiecommissie: Prof. dr. A. de Ruijter Prof. dr. J. Sanhueza Rahmer Prof. dr. H. Wittockx

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Abstract

T

he starting point of this research is rooted in a struggle with my own iden-tity as a teacher. As a teacher in adult education teaching the same course year after year, I felt alienated and stifled by the repetitive nature of the work. Collaborating and working creatively with students was missing. I also recognised this same identity struggle in other teachers working in Dutch higher professional education as they were confronted with contextual demarcations and educational changes. For example, ‘New Learning’ encourages teachers to move, pedagogi-cally speaking, towards self-directed learning. Additionally, the European vision of higher professional education is focused on teachers as experts in their field. This study explores how teachers in Dutch higher professional education are constructing their identity in the midst of a variety of different influences. Four-teen teachers at four institutes were selected and subjected to an online inventory and in depth interviews. Their teaching skills had been evaluated by students as excellent. I became the fifteenth teacher and hence, research subject. The Dialogi-cal Self Theory of Hubert Hermans was chosen to map identity construction. This theory is based on the assumption that identity consists of a dynamic interplay between a repertoire of internal and external I-positions. Identity construction can be understood by mapping this repertoire of I-positions.

Grounded theory was chosen as the methodological frame because it is in line with the ambition of this research in regards to constructing models. In relation to ‘how teachers are constructing their identity’, two models can be distinguished; firstly, a content profile, which shows what repertoire and composition are charac-teristic of teachers, patterns were derived from these unique teacher descriptions. Pattern language, an idea linked to Christopher Alexander, helps describe the building blocks teachers use in order to construct their unique profile. Secondly, a model can be made for the characteristics of the process of identity construction itself.

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the learning path, and engaging students’ mind. Thirdly, teachers in higher profes-sional education have a semi-profesprofes-sional profile. On the one hand, they exhibit autonomy and locus of control in different ways. But on the other hand, they have to deal with managerial constraints, imposed reforms, digital innovations, and a new type of students. To increase professionalism, the suggestion has been made to enhance teacher identity by adding applied research and more connection with professional communities.

On the process level, the central phenomenon in identity construction is under-stood as the career long process of dialogical self-negotiations in order to create coherence in the self. A process of self-agreement ‘I am a teacher’ is the background negotiation that takes place in order to stabilise identity. This is understood as the existential longing to make a social space – a job – into a personal habitat. In comparison with three juniors, senior teachers show a higher degree of dialogical self capacity to manage coherence in their teacher identity.

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Samenvatting

H

et startpunt van dit onderzoek is de verwarring rond mijn identiteit

als docent/trainer. Ik voelde me vaak vervreemd van het beroep door het jaar na jaar doceren van dezelfde leerstof. Ik ervoer geen cocreativiteit met studenten. Ik herkende ook verwarring bij docenten in het Nederlandstalig hoger beroepsonderwijs. Zij worden onder andere geconfronteerd met onderwijsver-nieuwingen: het leren coachen van zelfgestuurd leren, het competentiegericht onderwijs en de Europese visie die de docent als kenniswerker wil zien functio-neren.

Deze studie beantwoordt de vraag: ‘Hoe construeren docenten in het

Neder-landstalig hoger beroepsonderwijs hun identiteit te midden van de vele invloeden?’ Veertien, door studenten zeer goed geëvalueerde docenten uit vier

verschillende hogescholen werden geselecteerd voor een online vragenlijst en een diepte interview. Ik voegde mezelf toe als vijftiende onderzoekssubject. De Theorie van het Dialogische Zelf van Hubert Hermans werd gekozen om iden-titeit op een relationele manier in kaart te brengen. Deze theorie is gebaseerd op de aanname dat identiteit bestaat uit een dynamisch samenspel van interne en externe postioneringen.

Het methodisch kader was Gefundeerde Theorie (Grounded Theory). Deze benadering sluit aan bij de ambitie om modellen te construeren. In relatie tot ‘hoe construeren docenten hun identiteit’ kunnen twee modellen onderscheiden worden: ten eerste, het inhoudelijk profiel van de docent. Deze toont welk reper-toire en compositie docenten in het hoger professioneel onderwijs kenmerken. Daarbij hielp Patroontaal (Pattern Language), een benadering van Christopher Alexander, om patronen te zien als een taal waarmee elke docent zijn uniek profiel samenstelt. Ten tweede, naast het inhoudelijk profiel, kan een model gemaakt worden van het proces van de identiteitsconstructie zelf.

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interne locus of controle. Aan de andere kant moeten ze omgaan met druk. Ze lossen spanningen op met dialogische zelf patronen.

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Acknowledgements

During the project I had the privilege to work with several very capable, warm and passionate teachers. The interviews were a learning for me too.

I also would like to thank my promoter Prof. John Rijsman for his guid-ance, especially at the beginning and the end of the dissertation. You made the bridge between a practitioner and the University of Tilburg a positive experience. Thank you for your confidence in my intellectual capacity. I would also like to thank the second promoter Prof. Dr. Ir. G. M. van Dijk for adopted the research project in the final stage. I am also indebted to Ava Rijsman who edited the final text with much rigor and passion. Thank you for your Internet based service, a nice intercultural collaboration.

My learning process was also greatly enriched by external knowledge generation. For example, my interactions with teachers at Findhorn Foundation, Schumacher College, Transition Town Totnes, and the University of Plymouth helped me gain focus in the initial phase of my research project. I think my research will also contribute to the ecologization of the current worldview, as we learn to see identity as a relational field.

During the project, I had the chance to engage in conversations with several inspiring people from other universities. Kenneth Gergen and other research-ers at the Taos Institute inspired me to use a social constructionist frame. Harry Kunneman and Gaby Jacobs of the University of Humanistic Studies helped me interpret the data from a normative perspective. Hubert Hermans, the founder of the Dialogical Self Theory, and Frans Meijers, lector at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, gave me critical feedback based on my initial writing.

A number of colleagues, friends, and family have also supported my jour-ney in substantial ways. My gratitude goes out to Erica Gasseling. Together we spent many months exploring the quantitative data and interpreting teachers’ personalities. Jikke de Ruiter, Diana Evers and Fanda Zandhoven helped me nego-tiate my own relationship with authoritative academic standards. My colleagues at ‘het Ontwikkelingsinstuut’, especially Marcel Hendrickx, were very understand-ing and accommodatunderstand-ing given the fact that I had to spend huge amounts of time working on my thesis. The support of my partner Ann Sterckx was also invaluable. You provided me with moral support and you have always expressed your belief in me, namely that I could and should finish my thesis.

Antwerp, Belgium, June 2014 Rudy Vandamme

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Certificate of Authorship and

Originality

DECLARATION

I declare that the research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indi-cated is my original work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. This thesis does not contain other persons’ writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other research-ers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then:

a) words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced;

b) exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks, and referenced.

This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the References sections.

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Keywords

Higher professional education/Universities of Applied Sciences Educational reform

New learning (Dutch: het nieuwe leren) European vision on higher education Teacher identity

Dialogical self theory Social constructionism Grounded theory Interviewing teachers Pattern language Identity construction

Professional development of teachers Coaching teachers

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Abbreviations and codes

HU= Hogeschool Utrecht

CHE= Christelijke Hogeschool Ede HAN= Hogeschool Arnhem en Nijmegen

KATHO=Katholieke Hogeschool Zuid-West Vlaanderen

The teacher in the sample are coded and written in capitals. The second part of the name are the first letters of the forename.

HPE = Higher Professional Education DST = Dialogical Self Theory

GT = Grounded Theory

PPR = Personal Position Repertoire online inventory

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Outline of this dissertation

T

his research exemplifies how a professional teaching career can run parallel to and even compliment work as a researcher. Being a teacher and conduct-ing research are two of my major work related activities. Research has its own logic – something I am learning through my PhD work– but it isn’t completely separate from professional practice. The meaning of research can be found in its context. The context of this research is teaching and more specifically, the clarify-ing process my colleagues and I have gone through in an effort to construct their identity in the ever changing field of education. The research question is a grand tour question: How do teachers in higher professional education construct their identity in the face of contextual demarcations and educational change?

This research process, intertwined with personal development, resulted in a dissertation. It is written for the academic world as well as for my colleagues, teachers, school managers, reformers as well as those who coach and train teach-ers. I have experienced this writing as a narrative, starting off with questions and ending with a plot that unveils a hidden assumption.

In the first chapter, I explain how the grand tour research question emerged and what frames have nourished my thinking from the start.

In the second chapter, I summarize the Dialogical Self Theory of Hermans. It is the looking glass through which I understand identity construction. The Dialogical Self Theory provides a promising language to describe how teach-ers build their identity in complex environments. Multiplicity and hybridity are assumed.

In the third chapter, the use of Ground Theory is legitimated as the most appropriate method to generate a theory from the qualitative data. In this chapter, I defend the use of pattern language as a way to organise interview data.

In the fourth chapter, I describe the different steps taken to collect and edit the material.

In the fifth chapter, the pattern language is described in detail. How teach-ers in higher professional education construct their identity can be described by 43 patterns. Each pattern is observed in one or more cases. Moreover, the mean-ing of each pattern is discussed within its context.

In the sixth chapter, in line with Grounded Theory, a substantive theory is constructed. It contains a profile description of teachers’ identity. In the second part, the central phenomenon of identity construction is described.

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CHAPTER I .

From personal quest to

research question

T

he goal of this chapter is to explain how a personal quest led to a tangible research question.

Four years ago, three entries fuelled the inquiry into teacher identity: my personal quest being a teacher, the way teachers in higher professional education were responding to educational reform in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the influ-ence of the long term European vision on higher professional education1_{. I will}

explain these three factors in this chapter.

Due to the link with my personal development, this chapter can be read as a narrative of how the research question emerged. I started this research project as a way to cope with a personal issue related to teaching. I could have gone to a psychotherapist or career coach, but instead I chose to formulate a researchable question. The research itself became part of my personal and professional teacher development.

Besides a narrative, this chapter is also a first step in the logic of constructing a research design: it highlights the foundational frames in which the research project has to be understood. In the logic of a well-designed research project, personal issues are transformed into data. These data are a first step in a social constructionist2_{way of conducting research.}

1 . My personal quest: dealing with confined

psychological contracts

The initial research question and the subsequent research project are nested in my professional career as teacher in higher professional education and adult educa-tion. I have been involved in education for many decades as a part-time teacher in nursing and management. Furthermore, I am a teacher at my own adult training

1 Official website of the European Higher Education Area, covering all European governmental steps towards a unified higher educational system, since 1999: www.ehea.info.

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institute3_{. I would say ‘I am a trainer’ because our programs are competency-based}

learning trajectories in the domain of NLP, coaching, mediation, and leadership skills.

Over the last fifteen years of teaching, I have been confronted with the personal experience of de-motivation. I was often bored with the repetition in running the same program. Every time I was faced with repetition, a flashing red alarm went off signalling, ‘life ends here, I am being reduced to a robot who facilitates students’ learning based on predefined outcomes’. One of the common positions I had with regards to my work was, ‘I hate repeating myself.’ In my work, I strongly dislike repetition. Instead, I need new challenges and the freedom to explore and define unchartered territories. Repeating the same stories, exercises, and explana-tions creates the experience of alienation and disconnection. I feel disconnected not only to my students, but to what I am teaching them. I also feel disconnected from my own vitality, curiosity and creativity.

In my teaching practice it was clear that I was trapped in a behavioural pattern: each time I started to experience a teaching assignment as, ‘the same old same old’ ‘I started to doubt myself and my role as a teacher. ‘I am not a teacher, I have to stop teaching.’

My colleagues often responded by saying, “How can you be bored? Teaching is unique because every group of students is different.’ My friends who were a group of artists and performers said, ”You can recreate the same piece and breathe new life into the script like musicians do with a composition’. But this was of no help to me. Feeling alienated from the life stream and feeling disenchanted is how I experience repetitive work. One way of dealing with it is to teach different subject matter every three years. Over the last fifteen years, I have started many new projects and constructed many new programs at our institute. by moving from subject to subject, I felt like a post-modern teacher nomad, jumping from one subject to another in order to stay motivated. But this didn’t address the underly-ing issue.

For a long time, I thought that the underlying issue was rooted in education itself. In education, the asymmetrical relationship of teacher-student4_{and the}

pre-defined learning trajectories determine the space in which one is allowed to construct one’s teacher identity. I am inspired by Freire’s emancipatory education5

in which he looks for a way to participate and co-create with students in order to emancipate them as citizens. In direct contrast, my students tend to posture them-selves as consumers with their the ‘banking’ passive attitude sitting at their desks

3 www.hetontwikkelingsinstituut.be

4 Manke, M. (1997). Classroom Power Relations. Understanding Student-Teacher Interaction. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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consuming content. I am also inspired by Buber’s6_{idea that the most humane}

atti-tude is one in which the other, in this case my satti-tudents, relate to me, their teacher, as a ‘thou’ Students are not objects, but young people with feelings, and thoughts. They are fully developed subjects like myself. Like Foucault7_{argues, institutions}

have the tendency to legitimate and institutionalise power. This could be the case in higher institutionalised education as well. But what about adult institutes like ours? Are we not liberated from bureaucracy and power relationships?

During the year 2010, I did some experiments in my classroom in which I invited students to collaborate and work together to create learning in an open space. I started with a topic and asked students to formulate some questions of inquiry. I invited them to collect knowledge from their own experiences. As the teacher, I repositioned myself as an equal peer, as a colleague in a joint process to collabora-tively create knowledge. The ambition was to imitate the spontaneous co-creative dialogues that occur with colleagues as we serve to energize each other and create knowledge.

The results were disappointing immediately as students were dissatisfied with the role of the teacher. They didn’t see the value of creating their own knowledge together. They saw my role strictly defined as the expert and having paid for the course, they felt entitled to my knowledge and a learning trajectory that would successfully lead them to a predefined and measurable outcome.

This led me to the insight that in adult education there is another force that defines how educational practice is constructed. Adult students pay for their courses and with this payment, students agree and accept to the terms of a psychologi-cal contract8_{in which they demand a specific service. In our case, it is the law}

of supply and demand that determines how relational practices are constructed. Students are the customers and they don’t ask for co-creativity. I felt like I was a slave to their consumer demands. The only thing we can do, I concluded myself, is play with the boundaries and limitation of how teacher and students relate to each other.

Parallel to these experiments, I formulated a vision of what I see as education in the 21st century. I called it the triangulation model9_{. The idea of triangulation is}

that the educational context is not a dual top down transmission of knowledge, but a triangular interactional space between teacher, students, and knowledge. This model stresses the importance of teacher’s different roles. In addition to being

6 Buber, M. (1923, 2010). I and Thou. London: Continuum.

7 Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.

8 Rousseau, D. (1996). Psychological Contracts in Organizations: Understanding Written and Unwritten Agreements. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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a lecturer, a teacher can position himself as a coach, researcher, learner or even friend. This idea is inspired by Gergen’s10_{social construction view on identity. By}

seeing a teacher as a multi-faceted being, the authoritative position of the teacher is complemented with a more equal position.

With this model in the back of my mind, I trained teachers in higher professional education to widen their positioning towards students. I taught them to differen-tiate their roles and apply the following principles:

• Students learn through knowledge creation11_{. Knowledge building lies at the}

heart of learning.

• Teacher and students collaborate on a subject. They can have different learning- or development outcomes, but they share the same goal of knowledge creation as co-operative participants.

• The teacher uses his differences in ranking (expertise and life experience) to create a zone of proximal development12_.

• The curriculum is explicitly connected to larger meaningful issues, like chal-lenges in society, development of the profession, or development of worldviews.

Fig . 1: triangulation model: knowledge creation emerging from interaction .

10 Gergen, K. (2009). Relational being. Beyond self and community. Oxford: University Press. 11 Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In:

K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 97-118). New York: Cambridge University Press.

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In the first phase of the research it became clear that I had tried to solve an iden-tity issue by creating a new vision of education. I tried to adapt the context to my needs. My hope was that by changing classroom practices, I would create a way of teaching that fit with who I am. Theory and ideology were reflected my own desire to change the teaching practice in such a way that it would fit my own identity. The idea was that I would be happier with the job if I could rearrange how education is carried out in our society. In fact, generalising my own case, I was an exemplar of the category of people who don’t change or reflect on themselves, but try to change the environment in order to fit their personality.

At the beginning of the research project, the ideological perspectives and the attempts to change my classroom practices did not prove to be successful. So I started to reflect on myself. I moved from a pedagogical solution to a personal reflection on identity. I realised that identity should be the starting point. Gradu-ally I saw my own internal dialogues as a personal invitation to reflect more on my relationship to being a teacher. I reframed my own personal doubts into ques-tions, studying the relationship between the job, the students, and myself. I started to understand that the tension in my teaching practice was a reflection of my inner conflicts. On one hand, I experienced the lack of creativity in teaching. On the other hand, I experienced the value of teaching because it is a way of spreading work in a meaningful way. Then the questions arose: Why am I a teacher? Shall I leave the job or can I change my identity construction? How am I dealing with my ambiguous relationship with the job? How can I reconcile seemingly oppositional forces in my own identity? Why am I bored so quickly? Are there ways to integrate the creative part of my identity into my role as a teacher?

During the design phase of the research I gradually reduced the number of possi-ble research topics. I gave up on the idea of testing my triangulation model, I gave up on the idea of studying co-creative classroom practices, and I postponed the idea of constructing an educational model for the 21st century. I chose instead to focus on studying identity because as I saw it, the identity construction of teachers is a prerequisite for generating innovation in the classroom.

From this point the general research question related to my own teaching was defined as follows:

Who am I?

What is my relationship to being a teacher and how do I relate it to the other parts of my life and personal identity?

How can I align my teacher identity with the psychological contract of delivering fixed learning trajectories with my need to co-create?

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2 . Teachers’ response to reform: The educational

context in the Netherland

The second factor comes from the fact that during the period of the construction of the research question, I had an intense period of training teachers in higher professional education. Because of my expertise in coaching, I was asked to train teachers to coach their student in self-directed learning. Some of these teachers grew to become friends as we continued to work professionally and collaborate further.

At a certain moment, my professional work became entangled with educational reform. Teachers were asked to learn to coach students but I as I began working with them, I quickly discovered that it isn’t easy for teachers to adopt a new set of competences. Not only is coaching a different set of skills in comparison with lecturing, but teachers differed in their opinions on the use of coaching as an educational instrument. Due to my training work, I became curious about how teachers deal with such ongoing educational debates, especially in the Nether-lands.

During my research, a strong reform called ‘New Learning’ (Dutch: ‘Het nieuwe leren’13_{), was brought forth. In a nutshell, it framed the student himself as a}

self-guiding responsible person, which implied a change in teacher identity; namely, a change from the role of directing students to the role of coaching them through their learning path. Coaching in schools can be introduced in different ways: coaching students’ learning career; coaching as pedagogy in the classroom; coach-ing teams of teachers; and coachcoach-ing individual teachers, especially novices. In the Netherlands, coaching is seen as a general method of guiding individuals on their path towards a goal. The coach is a process facilitator and doesn’t have to be an expert in the content of the student’s project.

My experience in working with teachers was reflected in ongoing debate in the media as well as in more intellectual discourse on educational theory. What I am describing here is my observation of debates and discourse among teachers, school leaders, parents, and students. I haven’t systematized any of this data. The descrip-tion of those debates are subjugated knowledge, a term coined by Foucault14_to

describe the fact that my observations are non-academic. The description is part of my own perspective and understanding of how my research question emerged from my work.

13 Stevens, L. Et al. (2008). Leraar wie ben je? Antwerpen: Maklu.

Korthagen, F. & Lagerwerf, B. (2011). Leren van binnenuit. Kwaliteit en inspiratie in het onderwijs. Den Haag: Boom Lemma.

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Popular reform discourse about New Learning is polarized between two oppo-sites: on one hand, you have education as the so called old fashion teacher-centred approach, and on the other hand, education as coaching self-directed learning. In popular discourse, the valuation between both is in favour of the latter. In the professional community of educators, the choice for self-directed learning is connected to the constructivist theory15_{. Protagonists of self-directed learning use}

this theory to defend the idea that the starting point is students’ knowledge and experiences. The learner is as an active participant rather than passive receiver of knowledge. The process of making meaning and constructing knowledge takes place/occurs inside the individual and is an active process. Students are encouraged to take initiative and take ownership of their own learning, thereby developing their own intellectual identity. Adding to this argument is the general trend towards lifelong learning, more connection to work related practices, and the use of web-based learning to facilitate information streams and collaboration. The debates in favour of self-directed learning want to get rid of the old educa-tional paradigm16_{, where the role of the teacher is as expert who knows it all and}

knowledge is seen as universal.

In the specialised media17_{this ‘New Learning’ has been criticised for its ideological}

underpinning. Its critics interpreted New Learning as a far-reaching deschooling of learning and a turning away from knowledge as educational outcome. Scien-tific evidence18_{was used to counter attack this hyped reform and pointed out that}

when compared to self-directed learning, the results are poorer. On a theoreti-cal level, the critiques used Vygotsky’s19_{idea to emphasise the importance of the}

social context in teaching. The concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’ explains the importance of the teacher: teachers know their students and give them tasks and challenges that help them develop to a higher level.

My goal here is not to construct an educational viewpoint. But at the same time, it was clear to me that the polarizing discussion between teacher-centred and student-centred education didn’t reflect the complexity of the processes the participants of my training were going through. I heard two lines of thoughts; one about their distorted self-image as teacher and the other about the lack of partici-pation in the reform process. I will elaborate on both.

15 Glasersfeld, E. v. (1995). A Constructivist Approach to Teaching. In: Gale J. (Ed.) Constructivism in Education (pp. pp.3-16). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

16 Johnson, D. Johnson, R. & Holubec, E. (1998). Cooperation in the classroom. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 17 Gybels, N. (Ed.) Onderwijskrant 136 (First Trim. 2006). Het ‘nieuwe leren’ in de ‘bedrijvige school’.

Betekom.

18 H. Blok H., Oostdam, R. & Peetsma, T. Het nieuwe leren in het basisonderwijs – een begripsanalyse en een verkenning van de schoolpraktijk. Kohnstamm Instituut van de Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen, Universiteit van Amsterdam (SCO-rapport 746, projectnummer 2.0017) 19 Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind and Society. The development of higher psychological processes. London: Harvard

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First, the self-image of teachers was shaken by the fact that, during my training courses, they had to learn to coach students. They felt threatened by this request, which seems to imply that the existing model of education was wrong. They saw the reform as an infringement, as if they had to lose their expertise or stop emit-ting knowledge. Teachers saw the reform as a demotion from expert to coach. To me, this seemed like an identity issue: teachers had a sense of losing control of their pedagogical task, which in turn, created confusion about their identity as a teacher. I also started questioning my assignment to teach them to coach students. I had inadvertently become part of the implementation of this ‘New Learning’. During this phase of my research, I had growing concerns about the development of teachers’ identity. The following general research question emerged:

How do teachers construct and reconstruct their identity when they are face with learning to coach students?

Second, teachers complain about the lack of participation in educational reform. During my exploration of educational reform, I discovered that different authors20

who had studied the efficacy of educational reform in last few decades came to a similar conclusion: namely, that teachers are excluded from educational reform projects. Although they are the ones who implement and carry out new ideas and rules, they are not part of the design process. Lagerweij et al.21_{and Van der}

Bolt22_{summarizes different research on the commitment of teachers during such}

educational innovations. He concludes that because educational reform is domi-nated by discourse on effectiveness and efficacy of new reforms, teachers don’t take ownership of the reform project.

20 Bergen, T., & Veen, K. van, (2004). Het leren van leraren in een context van onderwijsvernieuwingen: waarom is het zo moeilijk? VELON Tijdschrift voor lerarenopleiders, 25 (4), 29-39.

Commissie Leraren (2007). Leerkracht! Advies van de Commissie Leraren. Den Haag: Deltahage. Delden, P.J. van (1996). Professionele organisaties. Veranderen onder druk. Amsterdam: Business Contact. Loeffen, E. & Springer, M. (2009). Eigenaarschap van docenten in de schoolomgeving. In: Konerman, J. (Ed.) De leraar centraal. Verstevigen van de positie en professionaliteit van leraren. Ten Bosch: KPC groep. p.66-77.

Waslander, S. Leren over innoveren. Overzichtsstudie van wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar duurzaam vernieuwen in het voortgezet onderwijs. In: Utrecht, VO-project Innovatie Onderwijsraad (2007). Leraarschap is Eigenaarschap. Den Haag: Ministerie van OCW.

Coonen, H. (2005). De leraar in de kennissamenleving. Beschouwingen over een nieuwe

professionele identiteit van de leraar, de innovatie van de lerarenopleiding en het management van de onderwijsvernieuwing. Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant.

HBO-Raad. (2006). Kwaliteit vergt keuzes: Bijlagen bestuurscharter lerarenopleidingen. Den Haag: HBO Raad.

21 Lagerweij, N. & Lagerweij-Voogt, J. (2004). Anders kijken: De dynamiek van een eeuw onderwijsverandering. Antwerpen – Apeldoorn: Garant.

22 Bolt, L. van der, Studulski, F., Vergt, A. & van der Bontje, D. (2006). De betrokkenheid van de leraar bij onderwijsinnovaties. Een verkenning op basis van de literatuur. Utrecht: Sardes.

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Teachers are not involved in the reform processes as designers, but as passive executors - those who have to implement the change. This seems like a top-down implementation strategy wherein power is disguised in the discourse of ‘going for the better’. Power is subtle and can be seen in the docile bodies23_{of teachers}

tire-lessly and dutifully trudging to school. Just as Freire24_{refers to students, now we}

can argue the same for teachers: are they working in a context in which they can be fully human? Are they appreciated as professionals? Do teachers have a voice in educational reform processes?

In contrast, a more emancipatory view of educational reform can be formulated as follows: it is through self-reflection and self-evaluation that teachers can break out of the bureaucratization and establish new patterns of education. Fullan25_declares,

‘If we know one thing about innovation and reform it is that it cannot be done successfully to others.’ Teachers should produce knowledge related to innovative practices and should share this knowledge with their professional communities. The teacher is a source of innovation and development. Teachers are not just docile bodies, subject of reform processes and managerial decisions. The Dutch government26_{recognizes the importance of teachers’ position. Teacher’s identity}

is one of the main variables in the success of teaching, reform, learning, etc. Reflecting on teachers’ position in reform, I started to become an advocate for the importance of paying attention to the way teachers deal with reform initiated by the government and school management, and changes in society in general. The discussion should move away from the content of the reform, to those who have to carry out the reform. Teachers should be in the forefront of our minds when thinking about how we can innovate education. Surprisingly, although notions of ‘self and personal identity are much used in educational research and theory, criti-cal engagement with individual teachers’ cognitive and emotional ‘selves’ have been relatively rare. Moreover, the way teachers construct their identity cannot be simplified in a few psychological laws. After extensive research on the role of teachers’ minds in change processes, Tubin27_{concluded the following: ‘The}

grow-ing body of literature dealgrow-ing with the teacher’s mind does not come up with any simple answers regarding what the connection is between a teacher’s mind and how it is developed, sustained, changed, and what effects is has on teaching.’ Yet the engagement to understand teachers is important to everyone that has an interest in raising and sustaining standards of teaching, particularly in centralist reform contexts, which threaten to destabilise long-held beliefs and practices.

23 Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon. 24 Freire, P. (1971). A Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder.

25 Fullan, M. G. (2001). The New Meaning of Educational Change. Third Edition. New York: Teachers College Press.

26 Onderwijsraad (2007). Leraarshap is eigenaarschap. Den Haag: Ministerie van OCW.

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Starting with the deconstruction of my training work with teachers, I embarked on a research project with the insight that an appreciative approach on how teach-ers construct their identity in the midst of educational changes is pivotal to a long term contribution to education. I wanted to study the teacher as relational being embedded in his/her own biography, social environment and educational developments. Applied to my own work of training teachers in coaching skills, it was now clear that part of the training should be dedicated to coaching teachers about how they relate to reform, coaching, and school management. We, train-ers of teachtrain-ers need to consider how they are engaged in their own professional development, and how they construct their teacher identity.

The following general research question emerged from my work with teachers:

How do teachers construct their identity in the midst of contextual demarcations and educational change?

3 . Higher professional education in Europe: identity

upgrade to knowledge centres

At a certain point in the process of constructing this/my research question, I decided to limit myself to higher professional and adult education. The motives were obvious: at the time, I was working with teachers in higher professional education. In addition, I could rely on my own career, having been a teacher at a school for health care management for fifteen years. And last but not least, I am currently working as a trainer at my own adult training institute, dedicated to lifelong learning, which I see as simply an extension of higher education. We work with adults from all professional disciplines.

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social work, teacher education and a whole spectrum of management, cultural and economy courses.

The Bologna Process28_{, which was led by the European government, launched a}

developmental process of higher education in general (universities and higher professional education). Under the name ‘Bologna process’, a vision was formu-lated, described and signed by 47 ministers of Europe. After a decade of mostly structural reorganisations, a new decade was initiated in 2010 with a renewed declaration, the Budapest-Vienna declaration29_{. The declaration addressed a}

whole range of priorities such as the social dimension, employability, interna-tional openness, and mobility). In the Bologna Process 2020, priorities will be formulated for the next decade30_{. Here are a few quotes that reveal the ambition}

(italics by me):

• ‘In the decade up to 2020 European higher education has a vital contribution to make in realising a Europe of knowledge that is highly creative and

innova-tive… Europe can only succeed in this endeavour if it maximises the talents and

capacities of all its citizens and fully engages in lifelong learning as well as in widening participation in higher education.’ (p.1.1)

• Upholding the highly valued diversity of our education systems, public policies will fully recognise the value of various missions of higher education,

rang-ing from teachrang-ing and research to community service and engagement in social cohesion and cultural development. All students and staff of higher education

institutions should be equipped to respond to the changing demands of the fast

evolving society.’ (p.2.8)

• Widening participation shall also be achieved through lifelong learning as an integral part of our education system…. Lifelong learning involves obtaining qualifications, extending knowledge and understanding, gaining new skills and competences or enriching personal growth.’ (p.3.10)

• ‘Student-centred learning requires empowering individual learners, new approaches to teaching and learning, effective support and guidance structures and a curriculum focused more clearly on the learner in all three cycles. Curric-ular reform will thus be an ongoing process leading to high quality, flexible and

more individually tailored education paths.’ (p.3.14)

• ‘Higher education should be based at all levels on state of the art research and development thus fostering innovation and creativity in society. We recognise the potential of higher education programmes, including those based on applied

28 Official website of the European Higher Education Area, covering all European governmental steps towards a unified higher educational system, since 1999: www.ehea.info. The official Bologna process website: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/

29 official declaration retrieved from: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/2010_ conference/documents/Budapest-Vienna_Declaration.pdf

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science, to foster innovation. Consequently, the number of people with research

competences should increase.’ (p.4.15)

Generally speaking, priority has been given to higher cognitive skills, critical reflection, research, and their impact on creativity and innovation in the social and cultural domain.

Let’s now turn to the specificity of higher professional education. Higher profes-sional education is part of tertiary education and is profiled in the Bologna structure alongside/with the same status as universities. Both have the identical degree system bachelor-master-doctor structure although professional bachelors are differentiated from academic bachelors. UAS have a different profile from universities. Before Bologna, the distinction between universities and higher professional education seem incomparable. But the difference, as designed by the European regulation has given these schools a chance to redefine themselves and find a unique identity in comparison with universities. They can upgrade to a profile of education that is more oriented towards knowledge creation, research and therefor, a meaningful contribution to society.

The declaration of the European Network for Universities of Applied Sciences31_,

declares? (italics by me):

It is no longer sufficient to provide education exclusively. Society expects from UAS that they take on their responsibility in solving societal issues as well…. Therefore UAS nowadays operate more and more as innovative knowledge

institutions, and have built up their experience in accommodating the new

needs from society in their institutional mission…. Professional practice throughout Europe has changed under influence of the development of the knowledge society. The image of a highly educated professional with a

standard repertoire of knowledge and skills is outdated. Society expects a

professional who continuously produces new and interdisciplinary

knowl-edge on the basis of his or her competences and innovative talent, which can be directly applicable in practice. Educating professionals for professional

practice in the initial phase and in the context of lifelong learning is the core task of Universities of Applied Sciences. It will be clear that the demand for the European professional means an adaptation in the way they are educated…. Applied research has to be added in the curriculum, done by keeping close contact with innovative demands from the world of work an by offering assistance in developing innovative solutions for professional practice’. Applied research and the contribution to the development of the immediate context is highly linked.

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In comparison to academic universities, the UAS have a unique position. They come in direct contact with the professional community via work placements, and other local partners. Helping to develop professional and societal needs is prominently displayed on the educational agenda of Europe. A program in higher professional education is no longer just a vocational training to initiate students into a profession. Instead, it is geared to instill lifelong learning in combination with a contribution to the development of the profession itself32_.

The institutional representation of UAS in the Netherlands, ‘de HBO-raad’ launched a document in 2009 that reformulated this European vision. In ‘Dedi-cated to quality’33_{(italics by me), the following can be read:}

The universities of applied sciences feel that it is necessary to educate students who can practise their professions with a critical perspective and who can contribute to innovation in professional practice. Education, which bears a close relationship to state-of-the-art developments in the respective discipline, is necessary for this. Applied research, carried out by universities of applied sciences, offers this opportunity. The projects usually arise within and together with a dynamic network of stakeholders in the profession and may therefore provide an important stimulus for innovation in education at universities of applied sciences. Inversely, the research environment of the universities of applied sciences often provides professional practitioners with a creative and safe environment in which to allow innovation to occur.

Universities of applied sciences therefore excel in their relationship to profes-sional practice…. Knowledge arises in complex and interactive cooperation

between knowledge institutions and professional practice. Universities of applied sciences can play an important role in the emergence of ‘communi-ties of practice’, in which lecturers, researchers, practising professionals and

students learn to make innovations to daily professional practice through social interaction with each other.

Research becomes an important part of education. In the concretisation of the Bologna idea for professional higher education in the report of The Netherlands 200834_{, the following is stated:}

• Practically-oriented research by universities of applied science is stimulated by government. Practical-oriented professors (Dutch: ‘lectoren’) are appointed to connect knowledge with conceivable consumers from business and society. • Universities of applied sciences agreed among themselves on a code of conduct

for assessing via peers the quality of practical-oriented research as a whole within the universities of applied sciences.

32 Research at Universities of Applied Sciences in Europe, p 1. Retrieved from: http://www.kfh.ch/uploads/ doku/doku/HBO-UASnet%20rapport-C%20(2).pdf?CFID=21875173&CFTOKEN=62370690. 33 HBO-Raad (2009). Dedicated to Quality. The Hague, aug. p. 21. The Hague, aug. (www.hbo-raad.nl). 34 National Report 2007-2009, Bologna Process, p.9; Retrieved from: http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/

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• Lifelong learning and flexible learning path: tailor-made programmes for work-based learning are established in higher professional education. Recognizing prior learning, including non-formal and informal learning, is concretized by portfolio system.

Research teachers (Dutch: ‘lectoren’35_{) introduce research. They guide knowledge}

circles and help teachers upgrade their research skills. The UAS council of the Netherlands describes the nature of ‘applied research’ as follows36_:

Applied research is described (briefly) as research, which is rooted in professional practice and contributes to the improvement of and innova-tion in professional practice. This takes place by generating knowledge and insights, but also by delivering applicable products and designs, as well as concrete solutions to the problems faced by professional practitioners. In addition, the research is generally multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary by nature and is embedded in a range of internal and external organisa-tional relationships, while retaining the academic reliability and validity of the research itself. The research bears a close relationship to the education offered, by contributing to educational activities, to the professionalization of lecturers and to innovation in the curriculum.

The HBO-Raad in the Netherlands (the council of Universities of Applied Sciences) even puts research and education side by side as equivalent compo-nents, related to a third one element, the professional practice37_.

Fig . 2: ‘Towards a sustainable research climate’ - drawing from the HBO Raad, p .9

35 www.lectoren.nl

36 Towards a sustainable research climate – Hbo-Raad, January 2010, p.14-15. 37 Towards a sustainable research climate – Hbo-Raad, January 2010, p.9.

Mijn emailadres:

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In addition to research and education, the role of professional communities has gotten/received more attention. De Ronde38_{sees regular teachers and research}

teachers connected to the professional field by joint projects of inquiry. For higher professional education, the professional community is an important stakeholder. The professional community can be inspired by the research climate in schools. As stated by the HBO-Raad39_{: ‘Knowledge becomes soon obsolete and}

profession-als must be able to identify, develop and utilise new knowledge. Research gives rise to insights into the process of innovation in professional practice. In doing so, it provides practice-based evidence which has an impact on the contents of the curriculum.’ The professional is seen as a reflective practitioner40_{and the school}

not only delivers these professionals but keeps in touch with them on their lifelong learning path. The practising professional becomes a co-researcher in relationship to the research teachers.

The Dutch speaking part of the Belgian government concretised the European vision in the same way. The ‘Vlaamse onderwijsRaad’41_{highlights in addition to}

quality, the role of higher professional education in relation to global trends. UAS should play a major role in societal change.

By becoming aware of this profound long term redesigning process of UAS, it is clear that although we would like teachers to participate in educational reform, ‘Europe’ has already designed much of this reform. It is helpful to realize that for this research it was necessary to study teacher identity not in isolation but in context. The teacher is merely one actor embedded in a field of actors, which tends to push him towards knowledge creation, the professional community and society. The Hoge Raad in its description of ‘applied research’ also formulates the following stakeholder vision of education42_:

The research carried out at universities of applied sciences is designed within a range of organisational relationships, including professorships and research centres. These share knowledge and insights with companies and institutions, carry out applied research and develop new knowledge, insights and products, usually in cooperation with external parties.

I have summarized different aspects of this vision in the graph below, which shows how the educational assignment of a teacher is embedded in a set of relationships. Classroom learning can be connecting to conducting applied research in work the

38 de Ronde, M. (2010). Kenniscreatie in kenniscentra - Een methodiek voor onderzoek naar professionele praktijken (Knowledge creation in knowledge centres – a method for research of professional practices). Onderzoek van Onderwijs, 39, April.

39 Towards a sustainable research climate – Hbo-Raad, January 2010, p.8-9

40 Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. 41 Advies over de structuur va het hoger onderwijs. Vlaamse Onderwijs Raad, Raad hoger onderwijs,

9 maart 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.vlor.be/advies/advies-over-de-structuur-van-het-hoger-onderwijs.

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placements. Moreover the external stakeholders, like the professional community and society have been given a place.

Fig . 3: stakeholders model for higher professional education .

I define ‘curriculum learning’ as the educational contract in which teachers commit themselves to help students learn basic knowledge and skills. Experien-tial learning or ‘learning by doing’ refers to on the job learning that occurs during work placement/internships. this learning is integrated into the classroom by teachers who work together with their students to create pivotal knowledge about the profession. In close partnership with research teachers (Dutch: ‘lectoren’), the teacher contributes to applied research.

4 . The research question and its meaning

Although this research project originated from many different places, there is one theme. I want to understand the construction of teacher identity from the inside out in relation to existing contexts. My research question focuses on the construc-tion of identity in relaconstruc-tion to constraining obligatory reforms, a range of new pedagogical possibilities, as well as the embeddedness embedded nature of teach-ing in an institutional settteach-ing. In the flow of their everyday experiences, teachers encounter situations that bring their existing ways of making sense of themselves

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and of the world around them into question. These moments of rupture bring the questions of identity into awareness, creating inner tension that needs to be resolved.

I came up with the following open-ended research question:

How do teachers in higher professional education construct their teacher identity in the midst of contextual demarcations and educational change?

Previously, I referred to the influence that the free-market based psychologi-cal contract has had/has on my adult training institute. I elaborated on the Netherland’s New Learning hype and the influence of the European long-term refashioning of higher professional education. But there are of course other contextual demarcations such as technological innovations, new kinds of student behaviour, globalization, sustainability thinking, and a multicultural society. In the midst of this context, teachers need to come to terms with their own posi-tioning. How does a teacher come to term with his own self-image? How does a teacher reorganise his own image in order to cope with all these factors? How does a teacher maintain his/her job satisfaction?

Development and the organisational context of education is not the core of my research question but it is an important aspect. In my view, it is impossible to talk about teacher identity without accepting that there is always a influential context and an ongoing succession of changes. By accepting this, the choice to study identity construction as the sole effect of inner psychodynamics or biographical influences is no longer an option. Instead, the focus must be on the relationship with the context. I have committed to a worldview in which the context has as much importance in constructing the psychological phenomena as the psycho-dynamic roots of a person have. I have committed to the social constructionist perspective of Gergen,43_{which states that we are constantly enacting the social}

context in which we live. Instead of being a mere backdrop, the context becomes a key part of the phenomenon under study.

This choice has a major research consequences. By adding the role of context to the research question, I have deliberately added tension between the apprecia-tive attitude towards teachers’ way of handling situations and the opportunities that reforms bring. The appreciative attitude implies a phenomenological44

atti-tude, one of accepting and respecting teachers’ experience. But I also want to look for the edges where teachers are dealing with the often as intrusive experienced outside.

43 Gergen, K. (1995). Social construction and the educational process. In: L. P. Steffe & J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in Education (pp. pp.17-39). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

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Although the research question might seem for the reader an obvious one, for me, limiting myself to this question was an achievement in itself. Before embarking on designing the project, I felt this question had become my question. As Mousta-kas45_{reflect: ‘the heuristic researcher is not only intimately and autobiographically}

related to the question but learns to love the question. It becomes a kind of song into which the researcher breathes life not only because the question leads to an answer, but also because the question itself is infused in the researcher’s being. It creates a thirst to discover, to clarify, and to understand crucial dimensions of knowledge and experience.’ It is the start of an investigation initiated with a passionate yet disciplined commitment of the self as investigator46_.

5 . Aims of this research

In total, eight objectives determined the way the research was designed.

1. Answering the open research question ‘How do teachers construct their identity in the midst of contextual demarcations and educational change?’ The challenge is to use a qualitative study of a small sample of teachers and infer from that sample a general idea of how teachers in higher professional education are constructing their identity. I want to discover their profile as well as the dynamics of identity construction itself.

2. The first entry was my personal development. I hope by doing research to develop my self-understanding and I hope to be able to resolve the inner tension that I feel in my role as a teacher

3. The second entry is teachers’ response to reform in the Netherlands. I would like to understand how teachers deal with reform initiatives. How do teachers deal with hyped reform projects like ‘New Learning’?

4. The third entry is the European vision of UAS. Is knowledge creation, applied research and contribution to societal challenges something that fits with teachers’ identity construction?

5. A theoretical aim is to contribute to the Dialogical Self Theory. The aim is to show how Dialogical Self Theory (abbreviated as DST) of Hermans47_{, with its}

concepts and methods, can be applied to better understand teachers.

45 Moustakas, C. (1990). Heuristic research: design, methodology, and applications. Newbury Park, CA.: Sage Publications. p. 43.

46 Douglass, B. G., & Moustakas, C. (1985). Heuristic inquiry: The internal search to know. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 25(3), 39-54.

How teachers construct their identity in higher professional education: A grounded theory study based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

Tilburg University

How teachers construct their identity in higher professional education

Vandamme, R.C.

How teachers construct

their identity in higher

professional education

A grounded theory study

based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

How teachers construct their

identity in higher professional

education

A grounded theory study

based on dialogical self theory and pattern language

Abstract

T

Samenvatting

H

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Certificate of Authorship and

Originality

Keywords

Abbreviations and codes

Outline of this dissertation

T

CHAPTER I .

From personal quest to

research question

T

1 . My personal quest: dealing with confined

psychological contracts

2 . Teachers’ response to reform: The educational

context in the Netherland

3 . Higher professional education in Europe: identity

upgrade to knowledge centres

Mijn emailadres:

4 . The research question and its meaning

5 . Aims of this research