University professor identity in a classroom and interview situation / La identidad de profesores universitarios en situación de clase y de entrevista

Abstract

We explored professor identity in situations such as being placed in privileged scenarios to explore transactions between the inter and intrasubjective, the public and private, as well as among discourse, action and emotion. Following a period of class observations, we used a multiple-case design to select and individually interview three university professors who possessed different instructional profiles: direct, interdirect and interconstructive. Our aims were to identify the professors’ personal position repertoires and to capture how those varied in regard to their instructional profiles. Professors with profiles that combined interpretive and constructive zones enunciated a greater variety and quantity of internal and external positions regarding academic adversities, emotions and the learning and teaching of knowledge. The three professors all held shared I-positions regarding the internalization of practices and norms from their educational culture. We concluded that instructional changes do not only involve progressive explicitation of contents and attitudes regarding learning and teaching, but also of who the represented agents are and what positions they adopt as learners and professors in the classroom.