The ‘C-Word’: novice teachers, class identities and class strategising

This paper draws on a longitudinal qualitative study exploring the influence of the social class identities of novice teachers on their emerging teacher identities. The paper focuses on the ways in which, even at an implicit level, many novice teachers appear to recognise that their own (or perceptions of their own) class identity and the associated cultural capital that they bring might not be equally valued in all school settings. Thus, whilst some novice teachers are constrained/restricted by their class identities, others, often those with middle-class identities, are more able to play strategically with their class, minimising the potential disadvantages of a perceived lack of appropriate cultural capital. This paper therefore sets out to explore these responses given that they yield strong support for the self-reflection, problematisation and critique of novice teachers’ identities in initial teacher education and training programmes