LIMITATIONS WITH CURRENT RESEARCH ON TEACHER IDENTITY
2.2 RESEARCH ON IDENTITY
The concept o f identity is complex with many theorists and researchers contributing to the field. While there are a vast number of authors who theorise identity and identity construction10,
9 While my research sought to examine the interplay between structure, culture and agency, I refrain from including ‘culture’ in the explanation of Bourdieu and Giddens’s work as neither viewed culture as distinct from structure.
10 I have chosen to use the word ‘construction’ here rather than the social realist term ‘emergence’. I will explain this in Chapter Three. With regards to the three substantial theorists whose explanations of identity and identity
this chapter first considers the work o f three key authors who theorise identity and identity construction within social life (i.e. social practice). These theorists are Bourdieu, Foucault and Giddens. Each has had a substantial influence on the literature and research on identity, teacher identity, and teacher identity within the field o f mathematics. All three o f these thinkers engage in the structure/agency debate, suggesting that any exploration o f social life and identity construction requires an understanding o f the relationship between social structures and human agents (Burridge, 2010).
This conceptualisation o f identity starts with a brief explanation o f identity construction from the perspective o f Pierre Bourdieu. It is followed by a discussion o f the works o f Michel Foucault and Anthony Giddens. I consider how each o f these substantial theorists contributes to explanations o f teacher identity.
2.2.1 Bourdieu’s theory o f practice and identity formation
Three terms necessary to understand identity and identity formation from a Bourdieusian perspective are habitus, fie ld and capital. The key term Bourdieu (Calhoun, Lipuma, &
Postone, 1993) uses to explain identity and identity formation is habitus, that is,
a system o f generative schemes that are both durable (inscribed in the social construction o f the self), transposable (from one field to another), function on an unconscious plane, and take place within a structured space o f possibilities (defined by the intersection o f material conditions) and fields o f operation. (p. 4)
In other words, habitus is a set o f dispositions which are internalised by persons as they interact in fields. These dispositions are durable, transposable, and function on an unconscious plane.
Put differently, these dispositions last over protracted periods o f time, are capable o f being activated in a variety o f social situations, and are habitual and embodied (Maton, 2008). While Bourdieu does not explicitly suggest that persons are “preprogrammed automatons” (Maton, 2008, p. 51), he views social practice as “a result o f an ‘unconscious relationship’ between habitus and a field o f action” (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 76). Put differently, it is the interaction between persons’ embodied dispositions, their positionality in the field, and their interaction in the field that gives rise to social practices.
construction form part of this chapter, I have chosen to use their terminology for the process of being and becoming: identity formation (Bourdieu), subjectification (Foucault) and identity-making (Giddens).
As persons interact in a field, they assume the roles and responsibilities and embody the expectations o f them, according to their position in that field. Fields are relational social environments (i.e. institutional settings) in which persons interact and are positioned (e.g.
home, school, church) (Harrington, 2005). They are human constructs with their own rules, regularities and values which give them their internal logics or doxa; an implicit taken-for- granted set o f rules and beliefs that are presented in the fields as natural (Deer, 2008). These rules or internal logic are internalised by persons as they interact in the fields. As such, fields are hierarchical and persons are unequally positioned in accordance with the volume and weight o f their capital in these social fields (Bourdieu, 1985). They are thus sites o f struggle and contestation (Thomson, 2008).
O f concern for persons is the extent to which they are able to accumulate capital (i.e. social, cultural and economic capital) in the field. Bourdieu (1977) argues that capital refers to the
“present and past positions in the social structure that biological individuals carry with them, at all times and in all places in the form o f dispositions” (p. 82). The accumulation o f capital is linked to power. Those with capital know the internal logic o f the fields and thus have more power as they have the practical sense to shape the rules o f the game, and to decide which practices to legitimise.
While persons have the capacity to alter the structure o f the field, they are not entirely conscious knowing subjects. Rather, they are bestowed with a ‘practical sense’ that is developed through the habitus (Bourdieu, 1998). The habitus, thus, is a “structured and structuring structure”
(Bourdieu, 1994, p. 170). It is structured through the experiences o f persons both past and present (i.e. experiences in the natal contexts and in schools) and structuring as it conditions both present and future practices (Bourdieu, 1994). W hen persons internalise their roles so that they become perceptual structures and embodied dispositions, the habitus is formed (Bourdieu, 1986; Harrington, 2005). These perceptual structures (i.e. the way we see the world) and embodied dispositions (i.e. the way we (inter)act within the world) organise ways o f viewing, interpreting and (inter)acting in the world (Elder-Vass, 2007). This organisation (or conditioning) is so effective that the dispositions it generates become unconscious; “embodied history, internalised as second nature and so forgotten in history” (Bourdieu, 1990, p. 56). Put differently, we carry our history into the present. The ontological relation between habitus and field is complex: “On the one side it is a relation o f conditioning: the field structures the habitus.
... On the other side, it is a relation o f cognitive construction. Habitus contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful world” for persons (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 127).
The choices people make depend on the positions they occupy in the social field. Choices are dependent firstly on the options available to them, secondly their disposition (habitus) and thirdly their experiences in the field. Choices shape future possibilities by setting them on a particular path which shapes their understanding o f themselves and their world (Maton, 2008).
Identity is thus viewed as the embodied set o f dispositions that persons develop as they interact in fields. It is through this interaction that persons’ identities are formed. Identities are, in many respects, dependent on the positions persons occupy in the fields, the extent to which they know the internal logic o f the field, and the capital they bring and accumulate in the field. While Bourdieu tries to develop a space for human agency, choices are ultimately limited by the habitus, capital resources and the experiences o f persons in the field.
In applying the work o f Bourdieu specifically to teacher identity and the expression thereof in teaching FP mathematics, teachers and their teaching practices are shaped by the social structures (e.g. insufficient resources) that condition their interactions in the relational field of power. It is in and through teachers’ interactions within the fields in which they operate, that their dispositions as teachers and toward teaching are formed. The teaching habitus is embodied through the multiple fields within which teachers operate and which confine the actions o f teachers. In many respects, teachers are structured by teaching practices that pre
date them, practices that are not o f their own making. They are thus positioned as more or less passive and compliant with those who have power in the field. They are viewed as implementers o f pre-determined curriculum materials specifically and more broadly, education policies. Compliance leads to the reproduction o f their positions in the field and ultimately the education and social systems. I elaborate on this in relation to my research in Chapter Five, Six and Seven. In so doing, I do not suggest that compliance is an indication o f a passive agent.
Bourdieu views identity primarily as a product o f society. In other words, he argues that people are socialised by social structures (e.g. institutions). Although Bourdieu attempts to develop a theory that mitigates an overemphasis on structure, he tends to reduce the significance of human agency to the reproduction o f structures (Harrington, 2005). While Bourdieu recognises the role o f agency by arguing that the internal is also externalised through social interaction in
the fields (Bourdieu, 1990), his theory has been criticised for being too deterministic, and as such leaving little room for agency (Birkett, 2011) and also for downplaying the role of consciousness in the formation o f the habitus (Elder-Vass, 2007). Archer (2000) contends that Bourdieu’s theory o f identity formation implies that structure and agency are mutually inclusive, meaning that one cannot be separated from the other. The implication o f this is that the influences o f structure and agency on identity formation cannot be extracted, thus limiting social research that wishes to examine the interplay between structure and agency.
While Bourdieu includes the role o f power in his theorisation o f identity, his conception o f power appears to imply ownership. In other words, persons have power by virtue o f their capital. Power, in this sense, is viewed as a possession. This ostensibly narrow conception of power led me to a Foucauldian explanation o f identity construction as he views power as distributed in and through discourses rather than being something one owns.
2.2.2 Foucault’s theory o f subjectification
Key terms in understanding subjectivity (loosely, identity) from a Foucauldian vantage point include: subject, subjectification, subjectivity, discourse, power, resistance and technologies of self.
Foucault (1977) does not refer to people as being socialised but rather suggests that they go through a process o f subjectification. Subjectification is the process by which subjects11 are produced and regulated in discursive contexts. For Foucault there are no pre-discursive contexts (McNay, 1994). Persons do not occupy given spaces within social structures (e.g.
Bourdieu’s fields) rather, they are constituted through discursive practices. Discourse, in this sense, is not only the words we say and speak (i.e. language and communication), but also the practices and rules o f the practices that generate and allow ways o f speaking and acting.
Discourses constitute reality, knowledge, practices and self and are also constituted by them (Zembylas, 2005). The discourses that produce and/or operate within various contexts (e.g. the school) either enable or constrain agency. W hat the subject feels, does or experiences, in other words, their subjectivity, is both produced and negotiated through the discursive process. In this sense, the subject is an effect o f discursive formations which seek to ‘normalise’ the
11 For Foucault (1982), subject refers firstly, to processes that subordinate in order to control other persons (i.e.
discourses); and secondly, to self-knowledge or conscience linked to identity (i.e. the effects of power). Implicit in both meanings of the term ‘subject’ is a technique of power that subjugates.
subject. The negotiation o f subjectivity suggests that the subject is never fully formed but continuously constituted (Walls, 2009).
The effects o f discourse are realised through the exercise o f power relations. For Foucault, power is dispersed, exercised and manifest in discursive practices. Power exists when put into action; these actions have effects on other actions. According to Foucault (1982), power is thus
a total structure o f actions brought to bear upon possible action, it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult, in the extreme it constrains or forbids absolutely; it is nevertheless always a way o f acting upon an acting subject or acting subjects by virtue o f their acting or being capable o f action. A set o f actions upon other actions. (p. 789)
In other words, power acts on the actions o f persons. This technique o f power is directed to everyday life through the manner in which persons are constituted as individuals. It “makes him [sic] by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law o f truth on him which he must recognise and which others have to recognise in him” (Foucault, 1982, p. 778). It is these relations o f power that produce and constitute the subject. W hile Foucault (1978) in his vast oeuvre reveals relations o f power that produce the subject, he is also interested in the subject’s struggles against subjugation, which he calls resistance. Subjectivity, for Foucault (1978), is thus understood through domination and resistance; “where there is power, there is resistance” (Foucault, 1978, p. 95). Resistance is understood as freedom to act in particular ways, in defiance o f or opposition to domination.
The Foucauldian concept o f technologies o f self provides the conceptual lens to examine the role persons play in their own subjectification. Technologies o f self “permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help o f others, a certain number o f operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way o f being” (Foucault, 1978, p. 18). In this way, individuals play a part in their own self-regulation. Foucault thus opens up the possibilities for agency by making transparent the “discursive threads through which [person’s]
experience o f themselves as specific beings is woven” (Davies, 1993, p. 12). It is in the process o f identifying and understanding how discourses produce and thereby effectively normalise the actions o f persons that one can begin to react to these discourses in order to produce something new. The notion o f technologies o f self, further enables Foucault to develop his thesis of
resistance or what is referred to as ethics o f self - “situated in the interstices o f power relations, at the level o f individuals’ daily practices” (McNay, 1994, location12 176).
Subjectivity is thus seen as a social and historical construct constituted through discourses. In the process o f such interaction, we constitute ourselves and others. The Foucauldian subject is thus not a unified, rational self, but rather a fractured, fragmented and multiple constituted subject. Foucault (1978) suggests we should “actively work to accept, to remake or reject those constructions o f ourselves where they do not serve us well” (p. 19). In this sense, he proposes that we should refuse to remain the same.
While Bourdieu suggests that teachers are socialised by social structures, Foucault emphasises the role o f discursive practices in the subjectification o f teachers. Teachers are constituted in and through these discursive contexts. In other words, teachers are an effect o f discourses that normalise certain knowledge, behaviours and ways o f acting in the classroom. These discourses are carried out through power relations that act on the actions o f teachers. Their resistance can be realised once teachers recognise the processes o f subjectification (i.e. how discourses normalise their interactions as teachers). It is only then that teachers are able to consider the possibilities o f thinking and acting differently. Exploring the influences that have shaped ‘who they are’ and their teaching practices can prompt resistance and transformation o f self and teaching. Put differently, for Foucault (1978), interaction between domination and resistance defines agency.
Critiques o f Foucault’s work assert that it does not enable an adequate theorisation o f agency.
Hall (2000) suggests that in much o f Foucault’s work there is little resistance proffered by subjects. Foucault’s understanding o f agency, as domination and resistance, is inseparable from his understanding o f discourses. Agency and discourse are thus mutually constitutive (Archer, 2000). Furthermore, according to Archer (1995), Foucault conflates what is (i.e. ontology) with knowledge claims about it (i.e. epistemology). In other words, what is, is a result o f what we know. In relation to subjectivity (i.e. identity construction) he thus collapses a sense o f self with the concept o f self. Put differently, he elides knowledge o f self with being (Archer, 2000).
These criticisms led me to search for an account o f identity construction that recognises the
12 This term location refers to the location number of a piece of text in a Kindle book.
import o f both structure (and/or discourses) and agency in a way that enables an adequate theorising o f agency. I sought such an account in the work o f Giddens.
2.2.3 Giddens’s characterisation o f identity-making: the reflexive project o f se lf Giddens (1984) attempts to overcome the structure and agency divide by proposing that they should not be viewed as a dualism. He argues that social structure and agency are interdependent to the extent that each constitutes the other, in and through practices. What initially resonated with me for my research was that Giddens gives more credence to agents by suggesting that their personal reflexivity enables them to redefine structures. This tallies with my experience as a teacher and teacher educator. Teachers are not simply persons to which things happen (i.e. they are not passive beings). Rather, it is through their capacity to engage reflexively about the situations in which they find themselves that their teacher identities are continually (re) constituted (Giddens, 1991; Archer, 2007a, 2012). Giddens (1991) suggests that without reflexivity there would be no society.
Central to understanding Giddens’ conception o f identity construction, is his theory o f structuration which incorporates the notion o f a duality of structure, practical consciousness and reflexivity. Like Bourdieu and Foucault, Giddens’ structuration theory suggests that structure and agency are mutually inclusive. In 1984, he wrote: “The concept o f structuration involves that o f the duality o f structure [italics added], which relates to the fundamentally recursive character o f social life, and expresses the mutual dependence o f structure and agency”
(p. 69). In other words, social life (i.e. social practices) is viewed as a combination o f structures and the actions o f agents. Giddens thus challenges the Bourdieusian view that structures exist outside o f persons but are internalised as they interact in fields. In so doing, he mediates the subject/object dualism by ascribing knowledgeability to persons in (re)producing society, yet acknowledging that this is done by invoking social structures in the process (Archer, 2010).
This duality o f structure and agency is a key principle o f Giddens’ (1979) structuration theory, which he describes as,
the essential recursiveness o f social life, as constituted in social practices: structure is both medium and outcome o f the reproduction o f practices. Structure enters simultaneously into the constitution o f the agent and social practices, and ‘exists’ in the generating moments o f this constitution. (p. 5)
In other words, it is through social practices that structures frame both practices and agents, but are also reproduced through the practices o f agents. This may appear similar to the argument o f Bourdieu, however for Giddens, structures are only invoked through the practices o f agents.
In this way, social life is viewed as the ongoing practices o f people that reproduce or change structures (Giddens & Pierson, 1998) and in turn are themselves reproduced or changed.
Structures are viewed as regularised rules and resources that people draw on when engaging in social practices. For example, a school is not a structure, it is a system that has structural properties (i.e. it has rules and resources) that are patterns o f “social relations in time and space involving the reproduction o f situated practices” (Giddens, 1984, p. 17). These rules and resources only enable or constrain the practices o f agents when they are called into being through the interactions o f agents. They exist as “memory traces, and are ‘instantiated’ in social practice” (Giddens, 1984, p. 25). As such, structuration is forever a process which does not convey durability or fixity. Rather, it presents as a malleable, changing social world (Archer, 2010).
The idea that structure is part o f the constitution o f the agent, means that in developing an understanding o f Giddens’ conception o f identity-making, this cannot be considered independently o f structures as they mediate and (re)produce social practices. Agents draw on rules and resources to enact a social practice, while simultaneously reproducing the structures o f the social practice. Persons are thus regarded as purposive agents with knowledgeability of how to reflect on their actions (Giddens, 1984, p. 25). This knowledgeability is “gaining and using knowledge about se lf’ (Cheal, as cited in Baxen, 2006, p. 38) and is rooted in what Giddens refers to as “practical consciousness” (Giddens, 1984, p. xxii). Practical consciousness is being able, as persons, to “go on” with ontological security (Giddens, 1991, p. 36); it is knowledge about social practices that condition the actions o f agents, but that cannot be described discursively. In other words, it is the taken-for-granted conditions, a “natural attitude” (Giddens, 1991, p. 36) or tacit knowledge, which anchor persons cognitively and emotionally, thus providing them with ontological security. It is through the social practices, rather than structures, that this ontological security is created.
For Giddens (1984), power is relational. Like Foucault, Giddens (1984) asserts that with power comes resistance. He argues that even those who are subordinate have the capacity to influence