Dixon, Wendy; (2021) The Construction of a Professional Identity: from Teaching Assistant to Teacher. Doctoral thesis (Ed.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This qualitative study explores how primary teachers, who were once teaching assistants (TAs), have constructed, and are constructing, their professional identity. It uses a qualitative design to describe the timing, time and place of events and the relationships the teachers hold in both their work and family domains. The role of key events and key people through the teachers’ big stories, reveal how these are conducive to, a sense of self, individual self-efficacy, exercise of agency and the construction of a professional identity. Drawing on possible selves theory and using a life course perspective through a life history design, my research is framed within the field of professional identity. Fieldwork took place in a four-week period, between the end of July and August 2019. Nine primary teachers, aged between 27 and 51, were interviewed at the end of their first year in teaching, using timelines and semi-structured interviews. Using a hybrid thematic analysis approach, findings show that teachers, who have been TAs, draw on their experience as a TA and acknowledge that familiarity with the school environment, alongside a more realistic understanding of the role of a teacher, are advantages when entering the teaching profession compared to those who become teachers without this experience. The teachers construct, and continue to shape, their identity through six components: experiences, relationships, skills, knowledge, qualifications and personal qualities. These components, and a sense of one’s self and the hoped-for, expected, future and feared-for selves, establish a context in which they may, or may not, exercise agency. This thesis demonstrates how a life history method can access rich data to understand how TAs make the transition to teacher. This research has implications for teacher education, training and practice: firstly, the findings highlight the unique and rich experience and skills that TAs bring to the teaching profession; secondly, they accentuate the significance of key people in directing teaching employment trajectories.

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