Teaching and Teacher Education
Author:
Keywords:
Educational changes, Emotions in teaching, Teacher identity; Micropolitics in schools, Social Sciences, Education & Educational Research, educational changes, emotions in teaching, teacher identity, micropolitics in schools, 1301 Education Systems, 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy, 1303 Specialist Studies in Education, Education, 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy, 3903 Education systems, 3904 Specialist studies in education
Abstract:
Based on narrative-biographical work with teachers,the author argues that teachers’ emotions have to be understood in relation to the vulnerability that constitutes a structural condition of the teaching job. Closely linked to this condition is the central role played by teachers’ ‘‘self-understanding’’—their dynamic sense of identity—in teachers’ actions and their dealing with,for example,the challenges posed by reform agendas. The (emotional) impact of those agendas is mediated by the professional context,that encompasses dimensions of time, age, generation,biography) and of space (the structural and cultural working conditions). Finally,it is argued that the professional and meaningful interactions of teachers with their professional context contains a fundamental political dimension. Emotions reflect the fact that deeply held beliefs on good education are part of teachers’ self-understanding. Reform agendas that impose different normative beliefs may not only trigger intense feelings,but also elicit micropolitical actions of resistance or proactive attempts to influence and change one’s working conditions.