The shaping of Ms. Nicholi: The discursive fashioning of teacher identities

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Abstract
This article examines how teacher thinking is socially negotiated yet individually enacted. Through a case study approach, the author explores how the identities of a first-year kindergarten teacher were fashioned linguistically as she moved through the contexts of her teacher education program, the elementary school in which she taught and the personal aspects of her life. Using ethnographic techniques, multiple layers of data were gathered in nested contexts. A theoretical framework was developed by juxtaposing the work of the Russian theorists Valentin Volosinov on the concept of ideologies and M.M. Bakhtin on his notions of language to guide the analysis of data. Findings indicate that by providing prospective teachers with the tools for conceptualizing teacher thinking as social, teacher educators can provide future educators with alternative ways to author their identities and help them to understand that they can create possibilities for all children.

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