On Being a Zebra: Negotiating a Professional Identity Whilst Coping With a Rare and Recurrent Illness

Authors

Phyllis Jones Professor, University of South FloridaFollow

Abstract

In this autoethnography I discuss some of the impacts of a chronic and long -term illness on my professional identity of a professor. I examine issues of lack of control throughout the discussion. I also discuss the contribution of phenomenological accounts in the form of autoethnography in serving to challenge society’s view of disability. I suggest the individual intersection of disability and identity demand that the scholarly community listen more to the stories of people who have actual experience of long-term chronic illness. In doing this, we may develop nuanced understandings of the impact of chronic long - term illness on the development on professional identity.

Keywords

Autoethnography, Chronic Illness, Professional Identity, Acquired Disability, Disability Theory

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Phyllis Jones is a professor in the department of Teaching & Learning at the University of South Florida. Phyllis taught and was a deputy head in schools in the UK for fifteen years before she entered teacher education. She came to USF in 2003. She is author of Curricula for Students with Severe Disabilities: Narratives of Standards-Referenced Good Practice, Inclusion in the Early Years: Stories of good practice, co-author of Collaborate Smart and lead editor of “A Pig Don't Get Fatter the More You Weigh It": Balancing assessment for the classroom, Leading for Inclusion, Creating Meaningful Inquiry in the Inclusive Classroom, Pushing the Boundaries: Developing Inclusive Practices through Integration of Insider Perspectives, co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Severe, Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties and The Foundations of Inclusive Education Research. She is co-editor of International Journal of Whole Schooling, sits of the editorial board of Disability & Society and is a regular reviewer for British Journal of Special Education, Journal of Child and Family Studies, International Journal of Inclusive Education, Journal of Teacher Education and International Review of Education. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: pjones7@usf.edu.

Publication Date

6-27-2020

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4295

Recommended APA Citation

Jones, P. (2020). On Being a Zebra: Negotiating a Professional Identity Whilst Coping With a Rare and Recurrent Illness. The Qualitative Report, 25(6), 1713-1720. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4295