Establishing Professional Identity: Narrative as Curriculum for Pre-Service Teacher Education

Abstract

It is unclear to what extent Australian teachers over recent years have resisted the impact of globalisation, marketisation and commodification on education generally and their daily work in classrooms specifically. Do teachers still see education as a public good, of personal and democratic importance in its own right regardless of the socio-economic background of students, or is education a critical component of material gain and individual, competitive advancement? Have teachers confronted these issues in reference to their own professional identities, in developing a strong relationship with their own knowledges as the essence of their educative role with young people? This paper suggests that such matters are still being played out in Australia, although the apparent weakness of the relationship that teachers have with their personal professional knowledge has contributed to an increasing commodification of education, especially in regards the Year 12 certificate.