Understandings of teacher identity have remained consistent for the past two decades with a consensus that identity is dynamic, flexible and hybrid and is influenced by a range of individual factors (Beijaard et al., 2000; Rushton & Reiss, 2021). While there has been rapid growth in teacher identity research over the past decade, few systematic reviews have been completed. As a group of authors, our own professional lives inform our interest in teacher identity.
We have all been schoolteachers, working in either secondary or primary schools. We are now teacher educators, working with teachers at different stages of their professional careers, in three UK-based higher education institutions. Given our experience of, and interest in, teachers’ professional lives, we were keen to undertake a systematic review of the teacher identity literature to further inform this field of research.
First, we undertook a systematic review of 412 items published between 2000 and 2021 and identified seven thematic groups that span key areas related to teachers’ professional lives:
- models and frameworks of professional lives
- narratives of professional lives
- becoming a teacher
- contexts
- communities
- change, transition and conflict
- subject specialisms.
