Understanding Professional Community and Professional Identity

Through The Experiences Of Bahraini Teachers Working With

British Teachers In A Partnership Project.

James Underwood

University of Northampton

and

University of Cambridge, Wolfson College

(full paper available on researchgate.net or academia.edu (type: James Underwood

Northampton University’ or write to me at james.underwood@northampton.ac.uk)

In this presentation, in order, I will

discuss:

• the context (about me, its position within a

current discussion, methodology, method,

research questions).

• four themes that emerged from these interviews,

using extracts from the interviews and my

memo-ing process.

About me:

• Teacher for 20 years in Cambridgeshire.

• President of the UK teachers union, the

NASUWT (Cambridgeshire).

• PhD student University of Cambridge

• Principal Lecturer at the University of

Northampton, teachers’ CPD.

The Context

• This paper relates to a paper I presented at ECER 2014 and

to one I will present on Friday. They are part of an on going

conversation with colleagues from the University of

Northampton and elsewhere.*

• Both other papers present a concept framework used as a

deductive framework.

• This paper presents just five codes discovered in the interview

data.

• It also fits within my PhD, the title of which is - ‘do teachers

who are engaged in working with colleagues from other

nations perceive themselves to be part of an international

community of fellow professionals?’

• *All are available at researchgate.net / academia.edu / or james.underwood’northampton.ac.uk.

As regards the background to this paper: in preparation

for my doctoral study I interviewed four teachers from

Bahrain, engaged in teacher networking via programmes

arranged by the British Council (an initial scoping study).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• do teachers who are engaging in networking

programmes that cross national boundaries perceive

themselves as belonging to a community of fellow

professionals?

• if so how do they define this community?

• in what ways, if any, does participation in such projects

or programmes shape their professional identity?

The methodological framework:

Influenced by: grounded theory, interpretivism, social

constructionism, Paulo Freire

Also by emerging researchers:

• Selena Yuan: arts based reflections.

• Majda Joshevska and Caroline Creaby: both exploring

identity within a practice based context.

• Cora Xu: exploring identity, community and boundaries.

• Elaine Batchelor: textual analysis of teacher talk.

The interviews

• semi-structured interviews.

• this schedule consisted of a short list of topics

that I wished to raise.

• the interviewees were also asked to draw a

diagram in any form illustrating the professional

communities that they perceived themselves as

belonging to.

4 themes that emerged:

• learning new teaching strategies

• reflection

• an international audience

• building relationships locally

Theme 1: learning new strategies:

Interview extracts:

‘I am a very creative teacher, I use ‘Western’ methods so I

am interested but I don’t think I will have so much to learn.’

‘I am not sure that people will be interested in learning from

me a teacher from Bahrain, new ways of teaching, but I

think teachers like talking about teaching and I like that.’

Learning strategies continued: initial thoughts (from a

memo)

It could be that part of the professional identity of some teachers

could be a perception of themselves as innovative teachers and

even part of a sub-community of such professionals. If this is the

case it could be a significant motivating factor for working with

teachers from other cultures.

However, this definition of professional identity may be

dependent on a defined other group of non-innovative teachers.

Perhaps as the geographical boundaries for those teachers that

we define as belonging to the same community of practice

widens, other boundaries narrow its membership in other terms.

Wenger and boundaries?

Theme 2: reflection

From an interview: “we reflect but yes I think that is what

makes a teacher a teacher and I think we reflect as a community

but it is not research”

From a memo: Three of the participants used the word

‘reflection’ in their diagrams. All identified an ability to

systematically reflect on practice as something that is distinct in

helping to create their own professional identity as a teacher and

something that they expected to find in colleagues they worked

with from other countries. To this extent it emerged as a trait or

characteristic, which perhaps identifies teachers as being part of

a shared professional community.

Reflection continued:

From an interview: I am rebellious sometimes, you know

creative, I look back at things and try to do it differently, I

don’t think all teachers do this, I find a new way to do things

different from others. (all the interviewees made a comment

to this effect)

From a memo: this raised the issue of whether part of the

professional identity of some teachers is one of being

‘rebellious’ and what role this may play. If a significant

concept for teachers’ self-efficacy is a perception of

themselves as rebellious it possibly presents obstacles for

teachers in terms of developing a sense of belonging to a

professional community.

Theme 3: an international audience

From an interview: “you know by working with

another country it meant we were able to say look

you do this amazing stuff but now other people will

see it. I think this was reciprocal. I think if you are a

good teacher it is good for people to know you are

good. Also to see that there are other teachers

across the world who feel the same way.”

….

Theme 3: an international audience:

From a memo: international networking enabled

these teachers to create a culture of innovation

that meant other ideas started to be developed

within the school that were not directly related to

the original project. To this extent the value of

international networking could be that it leads to a

process of creating a new sense of professional

community rather than revealing a common

professional community that already exists

Theme 4: relationships locally

From an interview: you know it wasn’t the

colleagues from the UK that the longest

friendships were built. These were important but

the longest friendships were built with the

colleagues from Bahrain who got engaged in this.

You know to find out there was this community of

teachers here innovating, looking outwards, that

was exciting.

Relationships locally

From a memo: it is possible that the process of

engaging with colleagues from other nations, as well as

building a sense of international community, creates a new

culture of teacher relationships locally. It may even be the

case that by throwing light on similarities and differences

with other nations a coherent sense of local teacher identity

is built through identifying differences and that this is more

professionally significant than reaching commonalities with

teachers from other nations.

Tentatively bringing this together.

• There was a sense of commonality, a shared

professional identity across nations.

• Based on professional characteristics (reflection,

innovation, rebellion).

• Not necessarily based on sharing practice.

• However, there are teachers who are outside

this community. Or who are perceived as being

so.

On line links. The full paper this presentation is based on.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281491525_Understanding_Professional_Community_and_

Professional_Identity_Through_The_Experiences_Of_Bahraini_Teachers_Working_With_British_Teac

hers_In_A_Partnership_Project

Related papers by me:

http://www.teacherleadership.org.uk/uploads/2/5/4/7/25475274/ecer_2014_underwood.pdf

Much better papers that shaped and influenced this paper:

http://www.teacherleadership.org.uk/conference-papers.html

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yanyue_selena_Yuan

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cora_Lingling_Xu

Thank you

for listening