This research aims to develop and validate an instrument for measuring primary student teachers’ professional identity tensions. Based on dissonance theory, we transformed existing vignettes (Pillen, Den Brok, & Beijaard, 2013) into to a quantitative Professional Identity Tensions Scale (PITS) and added tensions regarding teaching in urban contexts. We examined the psychometric quality of the PITS by administering this scale to primary student teachers from teacher education institutions in urban areas across the Netherlands. Two studies were conducted in the process of validating the PITS. First, items were tested among a sample of 211 students to explore whether they measure underlying constructs of professional identity tensions. Second, retained items were administered to a new sample of 271 students. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a similar factor structure. The finalinstrument includes 34 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale measuring nine different professional identity tensions. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
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This paper examines the (collective) performance of identities in an event context. During events, the participants not only engage in face-to-face performances, but also in the collective performances of crowds and audiences. This study analyses collective performance using Collins’ framework of Interaction Ritual Chains, which combines Goffman’s performance metaphor with Durkheim’s work on rituals and collective effervescence. This provides a more complete analysis of the ways identities are performed and (re)constructed during an event. This qualitative study presents the case of the Redhead Days, the world’s largest gathering of redheads. Visitor interviews and participant observation over four editions of the event show how a temporary majority of redheads is created, which greatly impacts both face-to-face and collective performance. Social practices that facilitate performance include photographing and storytelling. The data reveal that collective performance is inherently different from face-to-face performance, and that the combination of the two contributes to a change in narrative identities of the event attendees
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This article discusses how professional identity, conceptualised as 'stories professionals tell about themselves at a specific moment in a specific context', can be portrayed to address its complexity as a dynamic, constructed, cognitive-emotional, multi-voiced, and dialogical concept. In order to construct a narrative-biographical method, eight teacher educators reflected on their professional development, using the self-confrontation method, resulting in self-narratives. The findings of the study indicate teacher educators' meaningful experiences can be portrayed in a systematic way using identity components such as job motivation, task perception, task-feeling, self-image and selffeeling. This method can reveal a personal or professional theme to further educators' development, focusing both on a content level as well as an emotional level. These results were illustrated by one teacher educator's story. Finally, suitability of this method was discussed for reflection purposes in teacher education and research goals.
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