Chapter 10: Space, Resistance,And Identities

This chapter describes the coming together, at a particular momentand for a particular purpose, of a group of teacher-educators in a British university, to form a readers’ and writers’ group. Central government policy change regarding the nature of post-16 teacher education in England and Wales was the catalyst, and over an 18-month period, the group analyzed the impact of such change on their personal and professional identities and devised authentic ways of responding to it. Here we attempt to make sense of this experience within the theoretical frames offered by notions of communities of practice. In so doing we explore both the “inside space” of the group and its relation with the “outside” of our institutional context and beyond. The process of writing this chapter collaboratively has served both to reify further the identity and positioning of the group and to point toward future work. In claiming space for “bottom up” critical reflection and resistance and for the power to forge new positions in response to policy development, this experience clearly has a resonance beyond the particular circumstances of these teacher-educators. Employees in any setting, who are required to implement policies which challenge their professional identities, and who must find a means of rethinking and rearticulating their positions, can draw on this group process model.