TY - JOUR
T1 - Technologies of the self and narrating an ethical teacher identity, or how to tell stories of a life well lived
AU - Woolhouse, Clare
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - I consider how teachers discursively instantiate their identities through narrative work, which I frame using the metaphor of weaving a tapestry of the self, mobilising Foucault’s (1987, 1990, 1991) conceptualisation of technologies of the self, Butler’s (1993, 2004) work on performativity and her interpretation of agency, and Rose’s (1990, 1996) approach to psycho-technologies. I have included data from my analysis of sixteen life history narrative interviews conducted in North West England with teachers at different stages of their careers. My analysis contributes to the burgeoning area of international research which has indicated the need to better understand teachers’ sense of self, and intercedes with a unique insight into re-conceptualising identity development as discursive and performative. Three key aspects are addressed: how technologies of the self are instantiated via construction of the teaching self; how this self is performed as ethical with reference to normalised educational values; and how risk to this performance is ‘repaired’.
AB - I consider how teachers discursively instantiate their identities through narrative work, which I frame using the metaphor of weaving a tapestry of the self, mobilising Foucault’s (1987, 1990, 1991) conceptualisation of technologies of the self, Butler’s (1993, 2004) work on performativity and her interpretation of agency, and Rose’s (1990, 1996) approach to psycho-technologies. I have included data from my analysis of sixteen life history narrative interviews conducted in North West England with teachers at different stages of their careers. My analysis contributes to the burgeoning area of international research which has indicated the need to better understand teachers’ sense of self, and intercedes with a unique insight into re-conceptualising identity development as discursive and performative. Three key aspects are addressed: how technologies of the self are instantiated via construction of the teaching self; how this self is performed as ethical with reference to normalised educational values; and how risk to this performance is ‘repaired’.
KW - Life history narrative
KW - technologies of the self
KW - teacher identity
UR - https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2181453
U2 - 10.1080/09518398.2023.2181453
DO - 10.1080/09518398.2023.2181453
M3 - Article (journal)
SN - 0951-8398
VL - 37
SP - 1511
EP - 1527
JO - International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
JF - International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
IS - 5
ER -