CHAPTER 2: TOOLS REQUIRED TO CARVE A MASTERPIECE AROUND
2.2 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY AS THE FIRST TOOL
I now present the first tool used to understand teachers’ personal and professional identities in this study: social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). However, to understand the personal-professional identities of teachers within schools, we first have to know who the teacher is. I commence from the premise that a teacher is a social being located within the social context of schools, and that teaching is a social activity that takes
SIT to unpack teachers’
personal-professional meanings in their everyday
lives
Dilemmatic space conceptual framework to analyse everyday situations
that arise that present a dilemma for teachers within
the context of school quintiling
Ethical dilemma decision- making model to explain the choices and ethical reasoning
that teachers engage in to negotiate their dilemmas and
dilemmatic situations within the context of school quintiles SCHOOL
QUINTILES 1-5
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place with other teachers, learners, parents and other stakeholders. Social relationships within social spaces are fundamental to a teacher’s identity formation. Being part of a social space brings a teacher into contact with other teachers, thus becoming part of the collective identity of other teachers (Coldron & Smith, 1999). As Danielewicz (2001, p.
38) states, “we come to know who we are through social relationships with others”.
Hence, a teacher’s sense of self, behaviour and their personal-professional lives are shaped and negotiated by constant collaboration with others.
2.2.1 A broad orientation
Social identity theory (SIT) was developed from a series of studies frequently referred to as the minimal-group studies, conducted by the British social psychologist Henri Tajfel and his colleagues in the early 1970s (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Tajfel (1970) initially employed the minimal group paradigm (MGP) to understand how humans formed groups. MGP is a rough draft of SIT, and was designed to test the necessary and sufficient conditions for in-group favouritism and out-group derogation (Tajfel, 1970).
SIT is the study of the interaction between personal and social identities, and aims to identify and predict the conditions under which people think of themselves as individuals or as group members. The theory also reflects on the significance of personal and social identities for individual perceptions and group behaviour. SIT was developed from the belief that group membership can aid people to impart meaning in social situations. Group membership assists people to define who they are and to establish how they connect to others (Scheepers & Ellemers, 2019). SIT can also be used to understand how the group can contribute to an individual’s identity, and focuses on the “group in the individual”
(Hogg & Abrams, 1988, p. 3) and also the influence of the individual on the group.
2.2.2 Social groups
SIT has been used to explain people’s understanding, reasoning and behaviours with the help of group processes, and also how people may be identified through social groups (Trepte, 2006). In this study, teachers were seen as belonging to several social groups.
Hence, their personal and professional lives were understood through their membership
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in these various social groups to which they were affiliated. Their affiliation and association with these different social groups, in turn, gave rise to a social identity which then structured the way they should think, feel and act as members of the group (Hogg et al., 1995).
A range of studies has highlighted the importance of belonging to social groups, and the necessity for teachers to interact and collaborate (Badugela, 2012; Brown, 2004; Lasky, 2005). Being in a collaborative relationship necessitates that teachers have a shared understanding of the aims, objectives and values of the group (Malone, 2017). However, for the goals and objectives to be realised, teachers need to be part of the group and need to sustain contact with each other. It is a joint venture. Such collaboration allows for the sharing of norms, values and goals (Malone, 2017). Moreover, being within such a collaborative network of teachers provides for and shapes professional identity and agency (Lasky, 2005).
However, there is evidence that schools lack a robust collaborative environment (Ertesvåg, 2014) that supports relationships, teamwork, and associations, which is a crucial factor in job satisfaction and a source of emotional and social support for teachers (Vassallo, 2014). One major explanation for the absence of collaboration that is often highlighted is the lack of time. The scarcity of available time impedes collaboration, as teachers spend more time alone in their classrooms (Badugela, 2012) negotiating piles of paperwork (Vassallo, 2014), planning endless streams of assessments as a gauge for knowledge checks (Smith & Kovacs, 2011) and engaging in fundraising (Mestry, 2016).
Additionally, they are also called upon to see to the social and emotional needs of children (Toch & Headden, 2014). They also attempt to secure resources in deprived school contexts (Grimmett et al., 2008), for example by providing nutrition for learners in schools that do not qualify for the free nutritional programmes (Mawela & van den Berg, 2018), amongst others. These numerous roles and responsibilities have the potential to deprive teachers of time to collaborate. This workload creates a scenario that is contrary to what a productive school culture should look like — where teachers have sufficient time to undertake their tasks to the best of their ability (Bland, 2012). Such toxic cultures can result in schools becoming unproductive, adding to a state of despair (Roffey, 2012).
Therefore, providing teachers with the space to form social networks where they can draw encouragement and assistance from each other is vital. Teachers’ emotional wellbeing,
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therefore, needs to be championed both within and outside the school, as it impacts their self-concept and self-esteem, which are instrumental in shaping their professional and personal identities (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Hargreaves, 1998; Rodgers & Scott, 2008). However, numerous roles and responsibilities have the potential to deprive teachers of time to collaborate and impact their sense of self.
2.2.3 Importance of self-concept and self esteem
The importance of self-esteem and a positive self-concept has been highlighted by Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) and Rodgers and Scott (2008). Tajfel (1981) originally defined social identity as “that part of an individual's self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership in a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1981, p. 225). Since social identity is centred on the safeguarding and enhancement of self-concepts, any risk to the self-concept will, in turn, have an impact on identity. This concept of identity is also supported by Khan, Fleva and Qazi (2015), who show that teachers’ self-concept and self- esteem are tied to their identity.
The importance of self-concept for teachers within this study was essential. All the participants, whether directly or indirectly, were impacted by apartheid. Coming from a history of apartheid, where people of colour were reduced to nothing, changed their sense of self (Birkisdóttir, 2018). Puttick (2011) explained that many Black South Africans still bear the scars of labels attached to them during apartheid, and that this sadly continues, albeit in a more underhanded and devious way in post-apartheid South Africa. Many teachers have also internalised and accepted these labels that were thrust upon them.
Additionally, according to Puttick (2011), “this internalised oppression is liable to be expressed in deep-seated feelings of self-hatred, self-concealment, feelings of inferiority, resignation, isolation, powerlessness, and gratefulness for being allowed to survive”
Puttick (2011, p. 37). The sad part is that over time teachers with such perceptions about themselves may start to believe what is said about them — that they are inferior and a problem to society — thereby reinforcing self-fulfilling, damaging and undesirable stereotypes (Henrard, 2002). It is these very teachers who are now tasked with educating the next generation of South African learners. However, according to Mbuva (2016),
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teachers need to know who they are, and if they know who they are then they will have a self-concept of themselves. So if, according to Islam (2014), self-concept is the way people feel or think about themselves, and if teachers continue to see themselves as downtrodden, oppressed, inferior individuals, then they become incapacitated in their teaching career (Mbuva, 2016). For teachers to be able to negotiate their personal- professional lives in challenging contexts requires that they display the characteristics of confidence, self-direction, optimism, an ability to solve problems, and a cooperative attitude. Only a teacher who knows his/her worth will be able to step up and engage in these responsibilities (Mbuva, 2016). Therefore, teachers’ self-esteem and self-concept are essential ingredients for their success as teachers, for the progress of their learners (Mbuva, 2016), and for their personal-professional sense of self. Having a healthy self- concept is vital to withstand the difficulties of teaching (Rogers, 1969).
However, while a positive self-concept is essential for teachers’ emotional sense of self, evidence of teachers coming under pressure is well documented. According to Gold and Roth (1993), the teaching profession is increasingly seen as characterised by three conditions: “the prevalence and influence of stress, the declining morale of teachers, and the number of teachers leaving or intending leaving the profession” (Gold & Roth, 1993, p. 2). In the past twenty years, the role and description of teachers’ jobs around the world have changed, increasing their role expectation (Gold & Roth, 1993). The result of stressful situations on teachers can lead to an emotional and professional defeatist mentality (Coetzee, Jansen, & Muller, 2009). These stresses, coupled with the impact on their mental state, can have a psychological effect on their relationship with the children under their care, which affects not only teacher performance but also learner performance (Greenwood, 2002).
It is therefore important that teachers’ personal-professional lives be taken in totality and that teachers’ emotional states of being are also considered. The reason for this, according to Hargreaves (1998), is that the emotional significance of teachers’ work is often minimised due to teachers being viewed more as technicians, and their work being labelled merely in terms of knowledge, abilities and capabilities. Hargreaves (2001) goes a step further by including not only the emotional lives of teachers but also how their emotional lives are moulded by the way teaching is organised, planned and controlled.
He further states that if the powers that be do not focus on teachers’ emotional wellbeing,
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then such neglect can create political uncertainty. This neglect may lead to damaging emotions emerging from angry and frustrated teachers during times when political initiatives within education need to be implemented. Educational researchers have therefore agreed that the emotional state of teachers cannot be ignored, as it is an integral part of teachers’ professional lives (Kelchtermans, 2009; Zembylas, 2003).
2.3 THE THREE COGNITIVE PROCESSES OF SOCIAL IDENTITY