The main concern in the current research project is to follow schoolbased teacher educators (Korthagen, 2000) in practice schools which are implementing the 2010 reform for teacher education in primary and lower secondary schools in Norway. The project aims at analyzing how schoolbased teacher educators cultural formats their identity as teacher educators within a community of practice.

The project is part of a broader program, Teacher professionalism, developed at the Center for Educational Research at Bergen University College.

In this project, the main intention is to gain knowledge about how the practice teacher experience at the role as a teacher educator. In light of social construction theory I add the assumption that identity is constructed in a community that consists of several individuals, through communication and in a given context they interact and share and create new knowledge.

The project has a theoretical framework; social constructivism (Burr, 1995) this includes Discursive theories (Jørgensen & Philips,1999),  and Socio-Cultural theories (Vygotsky, 1978) Within sociocultural approaches knowledge is perceived to be constructed through practical activity were groups of individuals collaborate within a cultural context. These approaches thereby presuppose that the human being constructs his or her own understanding in a linguistic, social and cultural context. This implies that the study of human learning should be conducted within the contexts where the human being is situated. With this perception of research as a point of departure I will start my research.

 The project contains a special focus on Community of Practice . According to Lave and Wenger (1991) learning occurs primarily through participation in a community of practice. The novice has a peripheral participation; but her/his participation is undergoing a rising complexity gaining a fuller membership within the community, he/she will end up as a master. Put it simply, the individual learns when communicating, by participating and by actuating with other individuals.

To construct knowledge is closely related to the practice community and the individual's ability to participate. All individuals join a variety of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Within a particular community, the participants are involved in a common practice based on mutual engagement, shared responsibilities, shared cultural background, and common tools/artifacts. However, the knowledge construction is also an experience of identity leading to the transformation of the self. In the learning process, one starts as a novice and through various practices knowledge which is distributed among the participants in the situated practice community. Eventually, it will emerge new insight, knowledge, identity, and perceived more as a master for new novices. In the first part of the project one of the main issuses will be to recognize different Communities of Practice that the school based teacher educator is, or has been a member of.

Starting point questions:
How does identity of the schoolbased teacher educator appear?
What factors seems to be of importance in the identity process?

The presentation on this conference will be focused on preliminary findings of this first reaserch questions.

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