Exploring Professional Identity: Narrative Constructions of becoming and being a Teacher of Design and Technology Education

Abstract

This thesis examined the development of professional identity. More specifically, it identified the influences that serve to shape the perceptions of professional identity of beginning Design and Technology teachers. The study within the thesis employed a qualitative, narrative, collective case study approach to capture the ways in which beginning Design and Technology teachers’ perceptions of professional identity are constructed and reconstructed as they make the transition from final-year university pre-service teachers to first-year in-service teachers. The study examined the influences that shaped these constructions during this period and, in so doing, identified the factors that serve to support or impede these constructions. During the period in which this thesis was undertaken, the area of Design and Technology education was undergoing significant transition (Williams 2002, 2006). The educational and socio-cultural contexts that frame this research are currently being strongly influenced by political, educational, economic and industrial agendas (Barlow 2012). Australia is not alone in experiencing the implications of these agendas, as Barlex (2011), Atkinson (2012), Benson (2012) and Furlong (2013) have also identified issues of limited funding, subject integration and the devaluing of the subject at an international level. Collectively, these issues create a complex and dynamic setting in which beginning teachers engage in the process of becoming and being teachers.