I/You Do Not Fit Here Anymore : Developing a Research Identity as a Teacher Educator

Paper in symposium: ‘International Perspectives on the Professional Development of Teacher Educators in Contemporary University Contexts’. Presented at the Annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, USA. In this paper we examine the development of the professional identity of teacher educators who combine studying for a doctoral degree with working as teacher educators. While working on their doctoral thesis, teacher educators move temporarily from the semi-academic world of teacher education into the academic world of universities. Semi-structured interviews were held with ten teacher educators. Although the research topics, their experiences in conducting research and their professional life after obtaining the PhD degree differ in many ways, they all stated that they had developed a research identity as part of their former identity. Nevertheless none of the teacher educators, except one temporarily, made a job shift towards the academic world after finishing the doctoral thesis. They preferred the semi-academic world of teacher education where the focus is on education and practice-based research – if they are engaged in it at all - is a minor part of the work of teacher educators