Research question and theoretical framework

In the research Teachers’ professional identity, knowledge and practice, I am examining how teachers and special educators apprehend their mission and their management of student learning in secondary schools. My aim is to ascertain how they construct meaning and develop professional identity and preparedness, when students need extra support and assistance with their learning and education. Professional discourses on what is normal and what is special, may contribute insight into how and why they distinguish between ordinary and special teaching processes. The classification practice of special educators is particularly interesting because student needs for extra support and assistance are determined to a high degree through testing and diagnosis (cf. Penne 2006; Pihl 2005) and this is an area that has not been researched to any large degree. Up to this point in time the interviews has been the subject of analysis.

The research questions are: What are the professional discourses in school when it comes to student diversity? How do the professionals experience and construct meaning and identity as actors in the educational field? In this presentation some preliminary analyzes of interview data will be made, on the basis of following question: How can professional discourses point out respectively collective and individual space for progression and professional development?

All the participants in schools’ activities construe both collective and individual meaning, and the meaning creation is, according to Gergen (2005), construed within a social dependency. Teachers and special educators act within the framework of legislation and regulations, and the way school activities are organized. In this project I try to identify the academic and institutional functions of the utterances as they structure social practice and gain importance and positions to the actors.

I have chosen a theoretical point of departure in Bakhtin’s (1981) theory that utterances must be understood in the context of past and future discourses. This gives me tools to understand how a professional teacher’s narratives may be an essential ingredient in the professional formation of identity. A teacher does not make statements in a vacuum but in a dialogue in progress. Any professional meaning and understanding of job reality is thus dialogic by nature.

References Edvardsen, E. (2001). Historiske protokollers partiskhet. I C. Beck & A. Hoem (red.) Samfunnsrettet pedagogikk- nå. (138-158). Oslo: Oplandske Bokforlag Irgens, E.J. (2009). Mellom individuell og kollektiv praksis. Rapport nr.2/2009:53. Steinkjer: Høgskolen i Nord-Trøndelag