Abstract:

This paper focuses on issues of the professional identity of teachers’ in the teaching profession. It provides insights into various challenges imposed on teachers’ professional identity in the age of globalization and marketisation. A range of concepts and ideas will be examined through the works of the British Sociologist Basil Bernstein in structuring of knowledge related to occupational identity formation. The first part of paper highlights the dominant issues that possess a threat to the ‘notion of teacher identity’ that teachers’ had in the ‘golden age’ of teacher control. The second part focuses on the challenges to Bernstein’s identities arising from ‘regionalization’ of knowledge and ‘genericism’, educational reforms and Levi-Strauss’s bricolage. Thirdly, I suggest ways of re-constructing teacher identity in its current discussions through democratic professionalism, employing teacher activist identity and the use of teacher narratives in teaching. Lastly, the author recommends that teachers’ professional identity could be re-built through conservative ‘identity policy’ by re-designing of work environments, organisational structures and ways of thinking about and carrying out teaching.

Keywords: