Introduction: ISA and Its Application Across a Faculty of Education or School Board

Abstract

This chapter begins by describing the first stage of a line of reasoning (that continues in Chapters 2-5) wherein Identity Structure Analysis (Weinreich, 2003) is offered as a method that can generate information for the creation of professional development plans for entire schools and mentorship advice for individual teachers. Illustrative nomothetic Identity Structure Analyses follow the opening argument of this chapter. The first nomothetic analysis is of a faculty of education class and the second combines identity data across 3 schools. The first identity analysis is offered as proxy for a faculty of education and the second as proxy for a school board or local education authority. Both analyses illustrate that ISA can generate advice for professional development that is specific to the needs of the institution to hand. The use of ISA to develop such advice is offered as a ready way to augment current approaches to teacher professional development. The chapter closes with description of ways that governments and boards might use nomothetic reports to monitor schools across and within nations, regions and boards so that professional development resources might be better spent.