Chapter 8: Black Women Professors’ Evolving Teacher Identities: Reconciling Past, Present, and Future

Identity is a complex notion that, at its basis, refers to representations of the theories, attitudes, and beliefs that we hold about ourselves. Identities develop in contexts (i.e., daily negotiations within social spaces) and evolve over time.¹ Research on the identities of teachers is a growing body of literature that explores how teachers perform identities in school contexts regulated by cultures, ideologies, sociopolitical histories, and power relations (Barrett, 2008; Chong & Low, 2009; Søreide, 2007). Specifically, the notion of “teacher identity” involves the beliefs one has about teaching and being a teacher, and about how these beliefs influence professional action. Importantly, the ways in which teachers perform their identities have important implications for how they are perceived, both in and out of school contexts.