Shifting Relations: EFL Pre-service Teachers’ Sense of Self as a Network of Relationships

Abstract

This chapter takes an innovative approach to understanding pre-service teachers’ sense of self. It reports on a study which took a complexity-informed perspective to investigating a pre-service EFL teacher’s sense of self. In order to make the complex dynamic system of the self amenable to research, a social network analysis approach is used, in which the self is conceptualised as a network of relationships. It is shown how this innovative network relational perspective on the self seeks to be able to capture the deeply personal and inherently situated character of the self, its temporal character, the inseparable combination of personal, social and professional dimensions of self, as well as the role of human agency in how we construct relationships incorporating our belief systems, emotions and interpretations of past contexts in our present constructions of self. However, the approach proposed is not only innovative on a conceptual level but also in practical terms. It is argued that working with a relational view of self is more accessible for people seeking reflect on their own network of relationships that comprise their sense of self, identifying those relationships that perhaps are in need of enhancing. For most people, advice to improve their sense of self on an abstract, holistic level is often difficult not only to conceptualise but to act upon. In contrast, reflecting on individual relationships and seeking to enhance specific relationships is more concrete and thus more easily comprehensible and easier to work on.