Context, setting and teacher identities : a comparative study of the values of newly qualified teachers in Norway, Germany and England

This thesis examines the values that ‘becoming’ teachers in three different national contexts have identified as central to their professional identity. This examination takes place against the background of globalisation theories that argue there is convergence within the teaching profession. The thesis is based on a grounded analysis of interview data with thirty-two teachers from Norway, Germany and England as they moved through the process of becoming teachers from the end of their teacher training courses into the first two years as qualified teachers. The thesis contests the over determinism found in many theories of globalisation which argue that, because of the existence of global economic markets, a convergence of the professional identities of teachers is taking place. It argues that by focussing more closely both on the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ we uncover different stories, histories and cultures. By examining more closely the national contexts and the institutional settings in which teachers work notions of the possible convergence of professional identities of teachers can be contested. The study achieves this by showing how the professional values of these newly qualified teachers are mediated in different ways through the situatedness of key values surrounding pedagogy, organisation structures, and becoming a teacher. In so doing it emphasises the role the institutional setting plays within professional identity formation in ways that other writers have ignored when addressing theories of globalisation.