Study On The Teacher's Professional Identity In Middle School

In recent two decades years, more and more researchers analyze the questions of teacher development from the viewpoint of identity with reflection and improvement of the epistemology and methodology on the teacher professional study . The issue of teacher professional identity is becoming one of the interested subjects. Teachers' professional identity is a individual or colony's sense, understanding and idea of how they consider themselves which is built in the process of practice teaching gradually, and it is the cognition, thinking, and perspective of "who am I" , "how can I do" and "why should I do "form the view of teacher. Teacher's professional identity is important for developing awareness of teaching situation, forming senses of teaching, and taking actions. The domestic research on teachers' professional identity starts relatively late, and the existing research materials are less, especially there are no systematic and thorough studies on the connotation characteristics, types and levels, structure factors, process of forming, influencing factors and development strategies of teacher professional identity. Therefore, it is of both important theoretical and practical meaning to the professional development of teacher in middle school.Based on clarifying the basic problems of teacher professional identity, such as main contents, styles, development stages and so on, the important value to teachers' meaning of life, professional development and curriculum development are analyzed. The status quo of teachers' professional identity was examinaed by analyzing 306 teachers of middle school and investigated by using the self-designed teacher professional identity questionnaire and in-depth interviews .It was found that the middle school teachers present relatively high identification degree, but their consciousness of professional identity was quite lower. We should integrate and reconstruct the professional role urgently, and foster the teachers' feeling of professional identity further more, and we also found that it was not consistent between the cognition and behavior of the teacher professional identity.According to the above questions, this study discussed the possible paths and strategies of the formation and development of teacher professional identity in terms of two aspects of teacher individual and school educational environment, combined narrative research of teachers' personal life history. We should inspire the teachers' subjective consciousness, arouse the teachers' professional self-consciousness, strengthen the emotion of teachers' professional identity. Further more, the schools should strength the guidance of informal learning, construct human-oriented school culture and administration rules, and strength the guidance and cultivation of professional identity for various layers and kinds of teachers, such as normal school students, student teachers, novice teachers etc.The paper consists of six parts:Chapter 1: Introduction In this part, the original reasons for the subject selection , the analyzing of the research status quo and existing questions about teacher professional identity both domestic and overseas, the signification, and the way of thinking and main methods are given.Chapter 2: The Basic issues of Teachers' Professional Identity Combining the characters of teacher professional development, the connotation and characters, layers and types, the main structure elements and development stages of teacher professional identity are examined emphatically by using the society identity theory and self-identity theory .Chapter 3: The Value Analysis of Teachers' Professional Identity In this part, the important value and signification of teacher professional identity are expatiated from three aspects including teacher as an unique individual, professional of instruction, and practitioner of curriculum reform. To the meaning of life, teacher professional identity can help to incarnate the meaning of life and subjectivity; the professional identity is the internal basis and important guarantee of teachers' professional development. Teachers' professional identity provides strong support to the favoring development of curriculum reform.Chapter 4: The Status Quo and Predicament of Teachers 'Professional Identity the status quo and the main questions are investigated on professional ego, role, knowledge and ability, attitude and motivation, circumstance, behavior tendency of the middle school teachers by questionnaire survey and depth-interview. And the cause of formation is discussed from the view of culture, society, and system.Chapter 5: The Constrained Factors of Teachers' Professional Identity the main factors are discussed which influence and constrain the formation and development of teacher professional identity,such as the teacher individual, the working school, and curriculum reform. The main factors include the teachers' understanding of 'teacher professional', the motivation, the cultural atmosphere of the school, the mechanism of administration, the ideas of curriculum reform etc.Chapter 6: The Development Strategies and Conditions of Teachers' Professional Identity the basic principles and development paths of the development of teacher professional identity are revealed by the narrative of three teachers' personal history of life which at the different vocation career stages. And the possible strategies are discussed which may help to the formation and development of teacher professional identity both from the individual internal and the outside educational circumstance.