CORRELATES OF TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY.

Teachers' professional identity has a holistic and integrative character. It is an inherent quality of pedagogical and professional integrity and ethos. In this paper, the authors define teachers' professional identity as a relational, insubstantial, and nonsubordinate ratio of professional teaching practice (what teachers do) and professional roles and attitudes (what teachers are to themselves and to others). On a sample of N= 284 active teachers in Serbia and in Montenegro, the authors examined the prominence of various aspects of professional identity of teachers (teaching practice, school and profession, student development, personal development, role anticipation, and commitment to roles), as well as their interrelationship with some psychological variables (self-esteem, self-assessment of their own success, satisfaction with family, and professional satisfaction) and sociodemographic variables (sex, place of residence, years of service, and financial status). The obtained results show that personal development is the most pronounced aspect of teachers' professional identity and that role anticipation is the least pronounced one. Significant correlation has been found between different aspects of professional identity and individual psychological correlates. The results show that there is a possibility of predicting professional identity (the majority of measured aspects) based on a set of psychological predictors. The best predictor in all aspects of professional identity is professional satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]