Professional Confusion And Identity Reconstruction:a Case Study On X Teacher Community

The main aim of the thesis is to reveal how members of Ⅹ Teacher Community pursue their life meaning and shape cultural citizenship, in other words, to reveal the process of establishing Ⅹ Teacher Community, and to investigate performances of Ⅹ Teacher Community. It is achieved primarily through examining members’ working and living conditions and their thoughts and doings. For this purpose, the author interviewed many members of Ⅹ Teacher Community. The content of survey and interview includes their studying, working, living and feeling in the community and changes on their thoughts and doings. The main theoretical frameworks are "cultural citizenship" and Durkheim’s concepts of professional ethics and moral. The study makes a contribution to the limited research focusing on teachers as occupational group in China, particularly from a sociological perspective.This study finds that there is a mismatch between formal vocational training and teachers’ self-demands, and their real life situation was not matched with their past life experiences. The mismatches arouse their introspections, and they found it impossible for them to meet their pursuits for the meaning of life simply through the instrumental behavior, which set emphasis on formal training to improve teaching skills. Thus, they experienced a feeling of loneliness and meaninglessness and were at a loss about the future. Therefore, some teachers started to re-understand and restructure a more meaningful way of living and working through a series of discourse strategies and behavior strategies. As a result, Ⅹ Teacher Community was established and developed. In the process of reading, sharing and researching together, they construct a set of specifications for Ⅹ Teacher Community and a kind of open public sphere and public culture that based on introspections and communications. The setup of ethics and norms within teachers’ occupational group brings professional development and emotional rewards to the members, which makes a miniature "good society" with social morality. However, there are some problems at the same time.Fieldwork was conducted from July2012to December2013in Ⅹ city, a city located in the southeast of China. The Object being investigated is Ⅹ Teacher Community. It was comprised of depth interview and participatory observation. Besides, the author collects the members’ physical materials, and observes and understands their situation and thoughts timely through social networking platforms such as QQ group.