Understanding the Dynamics of Teacher Agency, Resilience, and Identity in the Neoliberal Age foregrounds how the neoliberal educational reforms contribute to the (trans)formation of teacher agency, resilience, and identity through various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches.
Understanding teachers’ professional identities and their development is key to unpacking teachers’ professional lives, the quality of their instruction, their motivation and commitment to teach, and their career decision-making. This book features a number of scholars from around the world who represent a variety of disciplines, scientific paradigms, and inquiry methods in researching teacher identity. By bringing these chapters together, this volume initiates active scholarly conversations and extends the boundaries of teacher identity research and practice. This collection of chapters provides significant insight into teacher identity and will be essential reading for pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher educators, school administrators, professional developers, and policy makers at various levels.
This open access book follows the development of the Building Resilience in Teacher Education (BRiTE) project across Australia and internationally. Drawing on the success of this project and the related research collaborations that have since emerged, it highlights the importance of cultivating resilience at various stages of teachers’ careers. Divided into three sections, the book includes conceptual, empirical and applied chapters, designed to introduce readers to the field of research, provide empirical evidence and showcase innovative applications. The respective chapters illustrate the ways in which teacher resilience can be enhanced in a variety of contexts, and address specific learning activities, case studies, resources and strategies, student feedback and applied outcomes. They also consider future directions including cross-cultural applications and the use of technologies such as augmented reality. The book will appeal to researchers, teacher educators and teachers, as well as those interested in supporting the cultivation and ongoing development of professional resilience for pre-service and practicing teachers.
Falun Gong is an introductory text, systematically presenting the practice of Falun Gong. This book includes instructions and photo illustrations for performing the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. Falun Gong is a high-level cultivation practice guided by the characteristics of the universeTruthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance. Cultivation means continuously striving to better harmonize oneself with these universal principles. Practice refers to the exercises five sets of easy-to-learn gentle movements and meditation. Cultivating oneself is essential; practicing the exercises supplements the process.
The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.
This resource supports teaching children and young people about mental health, wellbeing, resilience, and interpersonal skills. It was written with support from the Beeby Fellowship funded by the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO and NZCER. Teachers will discover ways to enhance student learning in four broad areas: personal identity and wellbeing communication and relationships with others social issues and social justice (especially against discrimination and exclusion) health promotion and action. The lesson plans work for multiple year and curriculum levels, and are particularly useful for Years 711 health education. Teachers will find relevant content for the following health education topics: personal identity and enhancing self-worth stress management friendships, relationships, and communication effects of discrimination and stereotyping on mental health support of self and others during times of difficulty equity issues that support the mental health of others and society help-seeking drug education and alcohol education (for example, the content on assertive communication, decision making, personal values) leadership and effective communication. The activities can be extended for senior secondary students and modified to be accessible for students at lower levels. Notes throughout explain how teachers can adapt, apply, and use the activities and ideas to achieve the intended learning outcomes and develop key competencies. Each section begins with specific achievement objectives, but teachers are free to develop their own. For this reason, achievement objectives for each activity are not specified. Instead, teachers can use the matrix showing links with the New Zealand Curriculum
Understanding Teacher Identity: The Complexities of Forming an Identity as Professional Teacher introduces the reader to a collection of research-based works by authors that represent current research concerning the complexities of teacher identity and the role of teacher preparation programs in shaping the identity of teachers. Important to teacher preparation, as a profession, is a realization that the psychological, philosophical, theoretical, and pedagogical underpinnings of teacher identity have critical importance in shaping who the teacher is, and will continue to become in his/her practice. Teacher identity is an instrumental factor in teachers’ and the students’ success. Chapter One opens the book with a focus on the development of teacher identity, providing an introduction to the book and an understanding of the growing importance of identity in becoming a teacher. Chapters Two–Nine present field-based research that examines the complexities of teacher identity in teacher preparation and the importance of teacher identity in the teaching and learning experiences of the classroom. Finally, Chapter Ten presents an epilogue focusing on teacher identity and the importance, as teacher educators and practitioners, of making sense of who we are and how identity plays a critical role in the preparation and practice of teachers.
The concept of possible selves, first brought to life only a short time ago by Hazel Markus and Paula Nurious (1986) has grown into an exciting stream of research. Scholars have examined possible selves with regard to a host of adolescent outcomes, including academic achievement, school persistence, career expectations, self-esteem, delinquency, identity development and altruistic behaviours. This book represents a sample of the current research being conducted in the area of possible selves. The contributors to the book were chosen to represent a variety of perspectives, and to collectively illustrate some of the different ways that possible selves are being conceptualised, empirically examined and used in interventions.
This Element aims to elucidate the concept of language teacher agency by exploring the 'what' question, offering major conceptualisations of agency and explaining how they shape the way we approach teacher agency. The authors then continue with the 'why' question, and elaborate on the reasons that language teacher agency matters, based on a discussion of the varied purposes of teacher agency at multiple levels. They also acknowledge that teacher agency does not operate alone, and discuss how it intersects with such concepts as teacher identity, emotion, belief and knowledge. Based on this, they identify ways to promote teacher agency through making changes to contexts and/or actors. They then introduce the concept of collective agency and propose a multi-layered model based on an illustrative study. The Element ends with a call for a trans-perspective on understanding language teacher agency so as to facilitate the professional development of language teachers.
Drawing on the South African case, this book looks at shifts in higher education around the world in the last two decades. In South Africa, calls for transformation have been heard in the university since the last days of apartheid. Similar claims for quality higher education to be made available to all have been made across the African continent. In spite of this, inequalities remain and many would argue that these have been exacerbated during the Covid pandemic. Understanding Higher Education responds to these calls by arguing for a social account of teaching and learning by contesting dominant understandings of students as decontextualised learners premised on the idea that the university is a meritocracy. This book tackles the issue of teaching and learning by looking both within and beyond the classroom. It looks at how higher education policies emerged from the notion of the knowledge economy in the newly democratic South Africa, and how national qualification frameworks and other processes brought the country more closely into conversation with the global order. The effects of this on staffing and curriculum structures are considered alongside a proposition for alternative ways of understanding the role of higher education in society.
