About this Research Topic

Background

World Teacher’s Day is an annual celebration of teachers around the globe. Since 1994, October 5th has commemorated the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which set benchmarks for the rights and responsibilities of teachers as well as their preparation, recruitment, working conditions, and continued professional learning. In 1997, the Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel was adopted to complement the 1966 Recommendation.

The 2021 celebration of World Teachers’ Day is co-convened by UNESCO in partnership with Education International (EI), the International Labor Organization (ILO), and UNICEF. Around the concept of “Teachers at the heart of education recovery,” the global event addresses the central role of teachers, teachers’ contributions to cultural, social, and economic life in all societies, as well as the support teachers need to contribute to (re)constructing education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

World Teachers’ Day allows for considering the dynamic relationship between teachers and teaching. In this light, we attend to intersecting themes of teacher identity, teacher learning, global teacher shortages, working conditions, levels of teacher autonomy and professional leadership, increased workloads, and constraints to the art of teaching.

In order to address these themes, Frontiers is launching a Research Topic on teacher identity within the global context in which World Teachers’ day is celebrated.

We aim to advance an understanding of and appreciation for the important and complex work teachers do, who teachers are, and the ways in which they advance education and democracy across the globe. Specifically, we aim to consider teachers’ identities within the contexts of teachers’ lived experiences and environments of practice. Taking a holistic view of teacher identity as including cognitive, emotional, bodily, relational, and creative aspects, identity includes the values, beliefs, commitments, actions, sensemaking, enactments, and relationships in and beyond the contexts in which teachers work and learn. We are also particularly interested in inviting teachers to contribute to this Research Topic.
In this volume, we encourage authors to address topics such as, but not limited to:

● The relationship of teacher identity to teaching practice and/or professional learning

● Current practices and needs for fostering teacher identity and knowledge in field experiences

● Creative methods for exploring teacher identity

● Teachers’ continuous becoming

● Teacher studies of teacher identity (e.g., auto-ethnography, discourse analysis, narrative inquiry, self-study of teaching practices)

● Considerations of identity as continuous and/or discontinuous, unitary and/or multiple, individual and/or social, dialogic, narrative, dynamic, united and/or fractured

● Complex or intersecting considerations of identity, pedagogy, content knowledge, and relationships in the practice of teaching

● Ways communities can attend to and sustain teachers’ social and emotional needs while developing and sustaining new practices

● Considerations of teacher identity and well-being in relation to student learning, identity, and/or well-being

● Ways teacher identities shape or are shaped by theories, content area knowledge, and pedagogical practices

● Teacher identity in relation to race, power, privilege, and/or policy

● Teacher identity and roles in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic

● The ways teacher collaboration and relationships foster identity, knowing, and improving teaching practices

Keywords: Teacher identity, continuous becoming, professional learning, teaching environments, teaching practices

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Frequently asked questions

• What is a Research Topic?

  Frontiers' Research Topics are collaborative hubs built around an emerging theme.Defined, managed, and led by renowned researchers, they bring communities together around a shared area of interest to stimulate collaboration and innovation.

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  You will choose your team of co-editors, curate a list of potential authors, send calls for participation and oversee the peer review process, accepting or recommending rejection for each manuscript submitted.

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