‘I really want to make a difference for these kids but it’s just too hard’ : one Aboriginal teacher’s experiences of moving away, moving on and moving up

Santoro, Ninetta (2013) ‘I really want to make a difference for these kids but it’s just too hard’ : one Aboriginal teacher’s experiences of moving away, moving on and moving up. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26 (8). pp. 953-966. ISSN 0951-8398 (https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2012.724466)

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Abstract

This paper draws on longitudinal data to examine the changing professional identity of one beginning teacher over a three-year period. Using a post-structuralist framework and theories of social class and capital, I highlight the complexities, contradictions and impossibilities of new graduate, Luke, sustaining an identity as ‘Aboriginal teacher’ in Australian schools. I trace the shift in his commitment to working with underachieving Aboriginal boys in challenging school contexts at the beginning of his career, to his move into a middle-class white girls’ school towards the end of his third year of teaching. I suggest this was a result of the ongoing stress associated with the expectation that he take sole responsibility for the education of the school’s Aboriginal students, as well as his own upward social class mobility. The paper concludes by raising a number of concerns for education systems, including the retention of Aboriginal teachers in Australian schools.

ORCID iDs

Santoro, Ninetta ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3357-3900;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:42901
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    2013
    Published
    17 September 2012
    Published Online
    Notes:Ninetta Santoro is a professor of education and the head of the School of Teacher Education at Charles Sturt University in Australia. Her research engages with how teacher identities are constructed and taken up within educational milieus, in particular, teacher education contexts. She has published in the areas of classroom practice, teacher education, language education and research methodology.
    Subjects:Education > Theory and practice of education
    Department:Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Strathclyde Institute of Education > Education
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:16 Feb 2013 05:34
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 10:20
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/42901
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