A Transcendental Phenomenology into How Teacher Educators Address Social and Psychological Elements of Teachers' Professional Identity

Authors

Hussein Meihami, Postdoctoral Researcher, Shiraz UniversityFollow
Naser Rashidi, Shiraz UniversityFollow

Abstract

Addressing social and psychological elements of teachers' professional identities is crucially important to develop teachers’ knowledge and practice concerning social and psychological issues in their classes. Thus, this study was an attempt to investigate how Iranian EFL teacher educators addressed social and psychological elements in teacher education programs to develop teachers’ professional identities. To that end, a series of phenomenological interviews were conducted with four EFL teacher educators to delve into their past, current, and future practices. Moreover, the syllabi covered by the EFL teacher educators were analyzed as a verification of the data obtained through phenomenological interviews. Explicitation of data was done through using Moustakas's (1994) systematic approach to analyze the interviews. The thematic analysis of phenomenological interviews indicated that EFL teacher educators addressed the social elements in teacher education programs by introducing sociolinguistics, collaborative activities, social negotiation, social awareness-raising, and social and cultural engagement. Moreover, the findings indicated that teacher educators addressed EFL teachers' psychological elements through action research, critical thinking, autonomy-enhancing aids, and helping teachers understand emotional work values. It can be concluded that Iranian EFL teacher educators address social and psychological elements of EFL teachers’ professional identities through various approaches which have been discussed in the current study. Using approaches that can affect psychological and social elements of professional identity simultaneously is the implication of the current study that should be followed by the EFL teacher educators.

Keywords

professional identity, transcendental phenomenology, phenomenological interviews, social and psychological elements, EFL teacher educators

Author Bio(s)

Hussein Meihami is a postdoctoral researcher at Shiraz University. He has published papers in various journals including Scientometrics, Journal of Language and Cultural Education, Teacher Education for Sustainability, Teaching Language Skills, Issues in Language Teaching, etc. He has also presented papers in many conferences. His research interests are teacher education, teaching L2 writing, discourse analysis, and Scientometrics. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4680-9860 Please direct correspondence to hussein.meihami@yahoo.com.

Naser Rashidi is a Professor of TEFL and the faculty member of Shiraz University, Islamic Republic of Iran. He has presented and published many papers in different (inter)national conferences and reputable journals. His areas of interest include the philosophy of language learning, critical pedagogy, critical discourse analysis, and teacher education. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4898-5243 Please direct correspondence to naser.rashidi@shirazu.ac.ir

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by Iran's National Elites Foundation. We also thank Shiraz University for its supports.

Publication Date

8-6-2022

Creative Commons License

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

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5306

Recommended APA Citation

Meihami, H., & Rashidi, N. (2022). A Transcendental Phenomenology into How Teacher Educators Address Social and Psychological Elements of Teachers' Professional Identity. The Qualitative Report, 27(8), 1509-1528. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2022.5306

ORCID ID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4680-9860

ResearcherID

Scopus Author ID: 56516990900