Chilean physics teacher educators' hybrid identities and border crossings as opportunities for agency within school and university

Abstract

This study examines the sense of agency developed through the hybrid identities of two Chilean educators working across a university physics department (as teacher educators), a secondary school (as part-time teachers), and a self-organized professional community to which they belong. A Freirean conceptualization of agency together with border crossing and hybridity was used as theoretical frameworks. Data were collected through biographical interviews and follow-up conversations. A critical narrative approach was used for analysis. Findings suggest that the two physics educators encountered a hegemonic culture of physics education characterized by different hierarchies and tensions, such as the devaluation of pedagogy, lack of spaces for dialogue, and a punitive view of assessment. Nonetheless, evidence showed that by crossing the borders of different communities, the participants problematise their boundaries. Through their hybrid identities position, the participants enact their agency to contest such boundaries bringing new practices particularly to the physics department, such as offering spaces for collaboration, allowing others to cross boundaries between the school and the university, and across science disciplines. It is argued that such identities can provide new

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