TSCHIDA, CHRISTINA MARIE, Ph.D. Authoring Professional Teacher Identities: A Journey from Understanding Culturally Responsive Teaching to Identifying as Culturally Responsive Teachers. (2009) Directed by Dr. Colleen Fairbanks. 308 pp. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the ways in which four elementary preservice teachers came to understand culturally responsive teaching and began authoring their professional teacher identities. It examined the influence of course work and internship at a culturally and linguistically diverse school on their understandings and developing teacher identities. The study employed ethnographic methods of data collection including formal individual interviews, focus groups, audio recordings of seminar meetings, personal documents and artifacts, and observations during intern site visits. Data were analyzed using constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2005; Rogers, Marshall, and Tyson, 2006). Sociocultural and dialogical theories of identity formation informed the analysis of the preservice teachers’ talk (Bakhtin, 1981; Gee, 2005; Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, and Cain, 1998; Rogers et al., 2006). Analysis occurred in two stages; within-case analysis sought to fully understand the individual experiences and understandings of each focal participant, and cross-case analysis was used “to build abstractions across cases” (Merriam, 1998, p. 195). Study findings suggest the understandings of culturally responsive teaching that the preservice teachers came to during teacher education were complex and influenced by a variety of factors including what the students brought with them to teacher education (i.e., their life histories, constructions of race and class, and personal experience with discrimination and knowing culturally diverse individuals), their course work, and the internship experience. Their visions of teaching and their negotiation of the tensions encountered during teacher education were influenced by these understandings, ultimately influencing the trajectories of each participant as they developed professional teacher identities. This study offers insight into the complexity of developing a vision for teaching in culturally responsive ways among preservice teachers. Implications of this study suggest the importance in teacher education of developing experiences for preservice teachers to work in culturally diverse settings, reflect on and engage in meaningful dialogue about such experiences, and reflect on their emerging teacher identities. AUTHORING PROFESSIONAL TEACHER IDENTITIES: A JOURNEY FROM UNDERSTANDING CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING TO IDENTIFYING AS CULTURALLY RESPOSNIVE TEACHERS by Christina Marie Tschida A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2009 Approved by ___________________________________ Committee Chair To Martha Your belief in me gave me inspiration to aim high. Your encouragement and support gave me strength to persevere. Your love gave me space and time to accomplish my dream. To Jackson and Jacob You brought a new purpose to my life and work. Thank you for the many sacrifices you each made during this long journey. ii APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair __________________________________________ Colleen Fairbanks Committee Members __________________________________________ Heidi Carlone __________________________________________ Jewell Cooper __________________________________________ Barbara Levin _____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee _____________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Colleen Fairbanks for her continued support and encouragement throughout the process of writing this dissertation. Her insistence on examining critically the talk of the participants helped me overcome my own subjectivities and biases and better present their stories of learning to teach in culturally responsive ways. Because of her persistence, patience, and time, I have become a much better writer. I would also like to thank my committee, Drs. Heidi Carlone, Jewell Cooper, and Barb Levin for their time and assistance in making this endeavor possible. A special thank you to Dr. Sara Fire for allowing me to enter her world of teacher education and participate with the 2007-2009 inquiry team. Her support and constructive feedback were invaluable during the collection, analysis, and writing stages. Thanks for the many talks, lunches, and constant encouragement. And finally, thank you to the participants who allowed me to walk with them as they learned to teach. It was a privilege to travel with them as they came to identify as culturally responsive teachers, and I look forward to seeing where the journey takes them in coming years. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 The Need to Develop Culturally Responsive Teacher Identities ....................2 Becoming a Teacher ........................................................................................4 Purpose of the Study .......................................................................................7 Research Questions .........................................................................................7 Significance of the Study ................................................................................8 Definitions of Terms .......................................................................................9 Summary .......................................................................................................14 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ....................................................................15 Framework for the Study ..............................................................................15 Critical Perspectives of Education ..........................................................15 Dialogical Theories of Identity Formation ..............................................17 Identity ..........................................................................................................21 What is Identity? .....................................................................................21 Identity in Education ...............................................................................24 What we Know about Identity Development during Teacher Education .................................................................................25 During course work .....................................................................25 During fieldwork .........................................................................26 Narrative as a Tool for Studying Identity Development in Preservice Teachers ...........................................................................29 Dialogical Narrative ................................................................................31 Culturally Responsive Teaching ...................................................................33 Origin ......................................................................................................33 Definition of Culturally Responsive Teaching ........................................34 Synthesis of the Characteristics of Culturally Responsive Teaching ......39 Sociocultural consciousness ........................................................39 Cultural competence ...................................................................42 Constructivist teaching ................................................................44 High expectations, challenging tasks, and scaffolded learning ....................................................................46 An ethic of caring ........................................................................47 The Importance of Identity in Culturally Responsive Teaching ...................48 Summary .......................................................................................................52 v III. METHOD ...........................................................................................................54 Introduction ...................................................................................................54 Case Study Research Design.........................................................................54 Sampling Procedures.....................................................................................56 Context ..........................................................................................................57 Overview of the Teacher Education Program .........................................57 Fall 2007 .................................................................................................58 Spring 2008 ............................................................................................59 Fall 2008 .................................................................................................60 Spring 2009 ............................................................................................61 Internship Setting ...................................................................................61 The town .................................................................................................61