Resources of biography : teacher identities and science teaching

Abstract

Changing classroom practices of teachers will continue to elude even the most sincere reform efforts. This is in part because the reformers have not paid sufficient attention to the personal aspects of teacher change. That is, how a teacher's sense of self has to change in order to enable the required changes in their teaching. There has been growing interest among researchers on the subjects of teachers' identities as they relate to the question of teacher change and many of these studies have contributed to our understanding of how teachers' professional identities are shaped and how teachers perceive their work and careers as school educators. Despite this substantial build-up in the literature on identities, few of these studies have explored the identities of teachers in developing countries. Furthermore even fewer studies have explored the connections between teachers' identities and their teaching practices either in developed or developing countries. This article presents work on identities of a South African science teacher, Movement Sithole. It explores the relationship between his multiple identities and the teaching practices in his science classroom, essentially making the case that changing classroom practices result from changing teachers' identities. In the article I discuss how Sithole used his experiences of challenge and marginalisation in his own life as a springboard for constructing a counteridentity that enabled him to change his teaching practices. I conclude by developing the concept of "resources of biography," as a way of making sense of how Sithole was able to (re)interpret his otherwise adverse experiences to function as a resource for constructing his counteridentity that enabled him to teach science differently than many of his peers.