Maeve O'Brien Braun

8.22 Hearing All their Voices: Secondary School Visual Art Teacher Identity Formation from a Dialogical Perspective (Paper)

Maeve O'Brien Braun – ArtEZ University of the Arts, Arnhem, Netherlands

Abstract:

This presentation will highlight key results from a mixed-method study of visual art teacher professional identity formation during their first two years of teaching in a secondary school. Working from a dialogical conceptualisation of identity, this research approached artist identity and teacher identity as 'voices’ that interact and catalyse the process of professional identity formation. The research combined qualitative and arts-based methodologies to widen the contextual and discursive parameters for understanding how these teachers position artist and teacher identity as their professional identity continues to form in the specific context of a secondary school.

Three studies which built on each other were conducted. The first study adapted an existing quantitative survey tool to identify what early-career teacher identity dilemmas are found in the visual art teacher group and how this dilemma experience compares to non-arts teacher experience. The second and third studies were conducted over a 16-month period. Participants were interviewed in the schools where they taught and took place in focus groups organised at a University of the Arts. Twelve beginning visual arts teachers took part in the 2nd and 3rd studies. These participants worked in different school types (general secondary/arts profile) and had followed a variety of pathways to teaching art (vocational Level 4 then BA art teacher education; dual-track BA art teacher education; post-graduate art teacher education).

Following Vella (2016), this research advocates for a renewed dialogue between education and the arts. It strives to provide new insights into how individuals with multiple professional identities form resilient identities and in doing so help develop art teacher education that respects the complexity of what our students face when they enter the working world. By focussing on the dialogues of these teachers it seeks to reveal descriptions of the identity formation of professionals who view creativity, emotional capacity and a strong personal identification with the occupational field as the keys to sustaining their practice over time (Määttä & Uusiautti, 2013; Heaton & Chan, 2023).