Abstract:

Professional identities of teachers are constructed as a result of their personal experiences and social interaction with their cultural and institutional environment. These personal experiences are either developed from their interaction with different social groups i.e. students, colleagues and other members of society or from their own personal accounts (Batool, 2014). Thus “being an academic is no longer straightforward, if we consider the extent to which they have access to, or can cross boundaries to, other communities of practice within and beyond higher education” (James, 2005, p. 7). The research on the professional identity of teachers has been criticized on various grounds including its inability to answer the question of how these identities are psychologically developed (Rodgers and Scott, 2008) and to ignore largely the importance of  the contextual and situational factors on identity development (Beijaard et al. 2004). Based on my doctoral research work (Batool, 2014), the current paper suggests the use of positioning theory and metaphors in order to understand how university teachers develop their identities while assuming that these identities then further inform the way in which these teachers execute their roles and responsibilities.