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.