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Examining how learners ascribe meaning to different aspects of their university life is a necessary undertaking in higher education. This article aims to investigate university students' conceptions of engineering and explore how these conceptions relate to the context of their experience. Our data collection method and data analysis are informed by the techniques of the phenomenographic approach and the Implied Identity Framework. Fifteen engineering students in a course about sustainability participated in the study. Results revealed eight categories of participants' conceptions: (1) engineering as a practice for designing solutions; (2) engineering as a pragmatic practice for the welfare of people; (3) engineering as a knowledge-based practice; (4) engineering as a communicative practice; (5) engineering as a technology-mediated practice; (6) engineering as thinking; (7) engineering as an independent practice; and (8) engineering as learning. These conceptions had cognitive, technological, or social orientations and were related to three aspects of engineering: outcome-focused; process-focused; and person-focused. Also, findings demonstrated that different contexts of the university, workplace, and society prompt different ways of thinking about engineering. The findings place a greater emphasis on personal agency and the development of student identities as lifelong learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper works on the premise that classroom talk conveys meaning about students as writers and asks how classroom talk facilitates the formation of students' identities as writers. We present findings from an ethnographic investigation of elementary writing lessons across six participant schools in Australia. Our data analysis is informed by two theoretical constructs that of positioning and implied identity. First, we explore different ways that students are positioned as a result of classroom talk and discuss implied identities – what these positions imply about writer identities within a context. Second, using a micro-ethnographic case study approach, we highlight how participants of classroom talk orient to the acts of positioning within a classroom context. The first section of findings revealed how classroom talk positions students as either autonomous, communicative, metareflexive, or fractured writers. Furthermore, findings showed that the observed writing lessons position students as writers who are concerned with form and pay attention to function. In the second section, we share an in-depth investigation of a year six writing lesson to show how different types of positions are negotiated by teacher and students on a temporal basis. We discuss implications for research and practice related to the teaching of writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional identity development is central to engineering education and has been an important focus of design for learning. However, little is known about how learners develop different aspects of engineering identity in response to the constraints and enablements of their learning environment. The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical approach for the exploration of how the learning environment facilitates engineering professional identity practices. We illustrate the application of the Implied Identity approach by looking at a group of four engineering students working collaboratively on a task about sustainability. We apply conversation analysis for an in-depth investigation of students' talk to explore how engineering identities are negotiated. Results show that the group's collaborative processes involve their identification with the engineering profession by excluding aspects of other professions from the (professional) self. This process is mediated by implied identities that are negotiated by participants. Applying this approach enables one to investigate the interplay between learner and learning environment and highlights the role of individuals' agency in relation to the contextual effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics teachers' identities profoundly influence how they interact with and position their students to learn mathematics. In this paper, we examine how a year-long teacher learning intervention supportive of student engagement in mathematics helped shift teachers' mathematics-related identities. We use an implied identity perspective as a theoretical lens to explore changes in what teachers perceive as legitimate ways of being as a result of their participation in the intervention. Data from pre- and post-intervention concept maps and focus groups with 15 grade 5–7 teachers of mathematics were integrated for this purpose. Teachers reported shifts in their identities, describing themselves as "facilitators," "learners" and "co-creators" of knowledge. We argue that such shifts in the mathematics-related identities of teachers can have practical consequences in terms of improving students' engagement, and in particular, their autonomy for learning mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]