Teacher Identity and the Struggle for Recognition: Meeting the Challenges of a Diverse Society

Teacher identity is shaped by recognition or its absence, often by misrecognition of others. Recognition as a teacher, or the strong and complex identification with one’s professional culture and community, is necessary for a positive sense of self. Increasingly, teachers are entering educational settings where difference connotes not equal, better/worse, or having more/less power over resources. Differences between discourses of identity are braided at many points with a discourse of racism, both interpersonal and structural. Teacher Identity and the Struggle for Recognition examines the nature of identity and recognition as social, cultural, and political constructs. In particular, the contributing authors to the book present discussions of the professional work necessary in teacher preparation programs concerned with preparing teachers for the complexities of teaching in schools that mirror an increasingly diverse society. Importantly, the authors illuminate many of the often problematic structures of schooling and the cultural politics that work to define one’s identity – drawing into specific relief the nature of the struggle for recognition that all face who choose to entering teaching as a profession.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Teacher Identity: The Nature of Invisibility and the Need for recognition Patrick M. Jenlink Section I: The Meaning of Identity – Understanding Teacher Identity in a Diverse Society Chapter 1 – The Metamorphosis of Teacher Identity: An Intersection of Ethnic Consciousness, Self-Conceptualization, and Belief Systems Ellen Riojas Clark and Belinda Bustos Flores Chapter 2 – Guardian of the Status Quo or Agent of Change?: An Exploration of the Role of Identity in the School Lorraine S. Gilpin and Delores D. Liston Chapter 3– Teacher Identity and Intersubjective Experience Mary Catherine Niño Chapter 4 – Tensions in Teachers’ Identities as Educators for Social Justice Karen Sirna and Richard Tinning Section II: Pedagogical Considerations in Shaping Teacher Identity – Raising Identity Awareness Chapter 5 – The Hazards of Engaging Teacher Identity in a Pre-Service Middle Level Program Cynthia C. Reyes and Penny A. Bishop Chapter 6 – New Teachers as Cultural Workers: Cultivating a Wide-Awake Consciousness of Identity Rosalie M. Romano Chapter 7 – Becoming a Teacher: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Motivation and Teacher Identity Formation Ann Nevin, Lori Bradshaw, Maria Cardelle-Elawar, and Rosario Diaz-Greenburg Chapter 8 – An Exchange Between Black and White Teacher Educators: Healing, Teaching, Perils and Possibilities Jean Moule and Ken Winograd Chapter 9 – Identity in Cultural Perspective: How it Matters to Teachers and Teaching Susan Florio-Ruane Section III: Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Teacher Identity – Embracing Politics and Professionalism Chapter 10 – The Irony of Women Teachers’ Beliefs About Gender Michele Kahn Chapter 11 – From As if to What if: Interrogating Power, Agency, Space, and Self in the Feminized Position of Teacher Mary Catherine Niño Chapter 12 – Personal, Professional, and Political Identities of Lesbian Teachers Darline Hunter, Michele Kahn, and Lezlie Gless Section IV: Identity Formation – Writing and Reading Teacher Identity Chapter 13 – Teacher-Candidates and Writer Identity: The Elephant in the Room Linda Fernsten and Pamela Hollander Chapter 14 – Using Literature-Based Strategies with New Teachers to Complicate What They Know about Identity Beth Berghoff and Kerry Hoffman Chapter 15 – Gaining Ideological Clarity: Constructing Positions on Race and Class in Teacher Preparation Jane Murray Agee Section V: Contextualizing Teacher Identity – Situating the Teacher Self Chapter 16 – The Challenge to Care: Personal Reflections of a Black Woman Teacher Educator’s Struggle to Establish Legitimacy in the College Classroom Marlene Munn Joseph Chapter 17 – Developing a Contextualized Teacher Identity: Embracing the Culture of the Borderlands Judith H. Munter, Beverley Calvo, Nancy Tafoya, and Sylvia Trillo Chapter 18 – Enseñanza de la Otro: Engaging Mexican Origin Students as an African-American Outsider Violet R. Johnson Jones Chapter 19 – Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers’ Conocimientos: Shifting and Evolving Consciousness Lilliana P. Saldaña and Josephine Méndez-Negrete Section VI: Being, Becoming a Teacher – Reflections on Teacher Identity Chapter 20 – Learning Our Identity as Teacher: A Palimpsest Writ Large in Life Patrick M. Jenlink Chapter 21 - Coda: Needed: A Pedagogy of Identity in Teacher Preparation Patrick M. Jenlink About the Editor and Contributing Authors

About the Author :
Patrick M. Jenlink is Professor of doctoral studies in the Department of Secondary Education and Educational Leadership and Director of the Educational Research Center at Stephen F. Austin State University. His scholarly interests are focused on the politics of identity and teaching.

Review :
In this book, Patrick Jenlink has collected a provocative set of essays about the meaning and nature of teacher identity in today’s acutely political educational climate. With striking clarity, the essays make two arguments: that invisibility based on cultural difference is a deep threat to public education, and that constructing pedagogy and curriculum for America’s schools based on recognition can be a powerful antidote. The novelty of this important book is in the way it presents teacher identity within the context of society and culture. It poses a unique perspective of the teacher as a whole, as a professional, and as an individual – not only in the classroom, but also in society and cultural contexts. As such, it is a teaching-learning text for teacher educators in addition to all those who care about making the person visible in a global, multicultural society. One of the first realizations most educators with social justice ambitions make is that teachers who are wont to interrogate their own identity positions are more likely to reproduce inequities in the classroom. Patrick Jenlink and a diverse array of contributors construct an impressive topography of identity that can help educators, educational leaders, and scholars alike understand the varied terrains of identity and do the work necessary to enact such interrogations. Jenlink’s book builds nicely on his previous works on the cultural recognition and the struggle for identity in America's schools. This book invites the reader on a journey of metamorphosis through personal reflection – evoking a passionate re-commitment to the human race through action with regards to social and moral responsibility. The voices held on these pages seek to unravel the threat of invisibility while returning significance to one’s search for identity. A profoundly important and necessary book – not just for teachers, but also for all engaged in the development of others.