Fostering the construction of shared teacher professional identities in an online educational context

Knowledge of the relationship between professional identity and professional knowledge/practice (Flores, Day, 2006; Loughran, 2006; Watson, 2006) has led many educational researchers to enquire into the modalities of professional identity construction. The aim of our research was to find, describe and analyse the narrative and discursive processes of professional identity construction as activated in a specific on line educational context, by 13 in-service teachers. The research design was based on recent discursive and narrative approaches to identity studies (McAdams, Josselson e Lieblich, 2006; Gergen, Gergen, 2006) and Positioning theory (Harré, Van Langenhove, 1999). It was hypothesised that the social interactions and shared narratives and discussions of personal/professional stories would allow professional identities to emerge or be constructed/reconstructed through the narrative resources available in the online context.