What Does Social Realism Have to Offer for Research on Teacher Identity in Mathematics Education?

Abstract

Research that focuses on teacher identity is gaining traction as researchers argue that teachers mediate more than mathematical knowledge and skills in the classroom. This research tends to be underpinned by a social constructionist orientation, which foregrounds epistemology over ontology. This orientation is limiting for research that wishes to understand the base conditions that enable or constrain the expression (i.e. both communication and action) of teacher identity in teaching primary mathematics. The paper suggests that this requires research that explores the interaction between structure, culture and agency in the expression of teacher identity in teaching mathematics in primary school. The study argues that a social realist orientation is of value to research on teacher identity. From this perspective, teacher identity is defined as the manner in which teachers express their roles as teachers. As the paper is primarily theoretical, the exemplification is limited to two primary school teachers' expression of only one role namely effective communicator of mathematics. It demonstrates what social realism enables, that is, not illuminated in research underpinned by a social constructionist orientation. The argument made in this paper elucidates how social realism supports a deep analysis of the structural and agential conditions that enable and constrain teacher identities.

Understanding teacher identity in teachers' professional lives: A systematic review of the literature

“…Arslan et al (2022)*, Beauchamp and Thomas (2011), Bradshaw and Younie (2016), Campbell et al (2022)*, Chen and Mensah (2018), Chu (2021), Colliander (2018), Correa et al (2014), Cross and Ndofirepi (2015), Dominguez et al (2015), Dunham (2018), Fuller et al (2013), Goos (2005), Hodges and Hodge (2017), Huerta and Flemmer (2005), Kirkby et al (2019), Köpsén (2014), Li and Craig (2019), Moore (2008a), Orr and Simmons (2010), Palmér (2016), Pelini (2017), Poom‐Valickis and Löfström (2019), Skog and Andersson (2015), Smith (2007), Taylor and Bangeni (2022)*, Truscott and Barker (2020), Vallente (2020), Weinburgh (2020), Westaway et al (2020), Woolhouse (2012), and Zhao et al (2013)…”

The experiential construction of mathematics teacher identity and the impact of early mathematical failure

“…The literature review discussed earlier, as well as similar reviews focused on mathematics learners' identities (Radovic et al, 2018), allude to a field confused by different epistemological and ontological traditions (Westaway et al, 2020). Our view is that such differences should be commended rather than condemned; researchers looking through one set of epistemological lenses may see something different from those looking through a different set of epistemological lenses.…”