A Study On The Professional Identity Of Chinese Teachers In International Schools

This study focuses on the professional identity of Chinese teachers who teach in international schools in China,aiming to deeply explore the construction process,connotational dimensions and influencing factors of their professional identity.Twelve Chinese teachers from six international schools in Shanghai were interviewed.By means of one-on-one and half structured in-depth interviews,nearly17 hours of interview recordings were collected,and the interview transcripts were about 210 thousand words.The three-level coding method of grounded theory was adopted to process the interview data,and the analytical framework was based on the Social Identity Theory.According to the Social Identity Theory,this study presents the construction process of Chinese bilingual teachers’ professional identity in detail.On this basis,the researcher further explored the connotational dimensions of their professional identity.Finally,the influencing factors were summarized from three levels: micro,meso and macro.The main findings include:Firstly,Chinese teachers play diverse and irreplaceable roles in international schools.In addition to completing tasks such as teaching and management,they are also bridges for home and school communication,mentors of students’ life attitudes and values,and they shoulder the important responsibility of building morality in students’ hearts.Secondly,teachers’ professional identity refers to both a process and a state.The construction process of professional identity can be divided into three stages: social categorization,social comparison and positive distinctiveness.It is a dynamic and continuous process.The professional identity of Chinese teachers in international schools is constructed as a multi-dimensional structure composed of four elements:identity for working environment,working content,value and social status.According to the different degrees of identity of each dimension,the professional identities of the twelve teachers are divided into three types.Thirdly,this study summarizes the influencing factors of Chinese teachers’ professional identity in international schools from three levels: individual factors（micro）,internal organizational factors（meso）and social environmental factors（macro）.Finally,on the basis of the research findings,this paper puts forward research suggestions on improving the construction of teachers’ professional identity for education authorities,international schools and individual teachers.