Examining opportunities for the development of interacting identities within pre-service teacher education mathematics classrooms
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Date
2014
Authors
Essien, Anthony A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Education, University of the Free State
Abstract
In any pre-service mathematics teacher education classroom, multiple identities
are co-constructed simultaneously through the practices in which such classrooms
engage. These multiple identities, which are interrelated and in constant interaction,
include becoming a teacher of mathematics, becoming learners of mathematics,
becoming learners of mathematical practices and becoming proficient English
users for the purpose of teaching/learning mathematics and, finally, in multilingual
contexts, becoming teachers of mathematics in multilingual classrooms. In this paper,
I explore how classroom engagement supports the development of these interacting
identities within pre-service teacher education classrooms. I use a developing
framework, which I describe in this paper, to delineate each of these identities in
four pre-service teacher education classrooms in two universities in South Africa.
A notable finding was that, even though the teacher educators in the study were
aware of their context of teaching, the identities that were projected through their
classroom practices were mostly those that inducted the pre-service teachers (PSTs)
into becoming learners of mathematics content. There were very limited practices
aimed at inducting pre-service teachers into becoming teachers of mathematics and
even more limited opportunities for the development of the identity of becoming
teachers of mathematics in multilingual classrooms. Recommendations are made for
the design of pre-service teacher education programmes.
Description
Keywords
Pre-service teachers, Identity in practice, Teacher education, Mathematics classrooms
Citation
Essien, A. A. (2014). Examining opportunities for the development of interacting identities within pre-service teacher education mathematics classrooms. Perspectives in Education, 32(3), 62-77.