Abstract:
This paper reports on a recently completed study that investigated the effects of the contemporary policies and discourses of vocational education and training on the formation of teachers identities. It suggests that the dominant economic discourses of government are attempting to construct a new reality for teachers working in this sector of education and that the impact of these discourses on teachers understanding of who they are in education has not been adequately examined. Calls for teachers to change their pedagogical practices and educational roles to meet the challenges presented by this new discursive reality, can be seen as making an overly instrumental means-ends connection between teachers knowledge and skills and the professional practice of teaching and fails to appreciate that when teachers are asked to do things differently they are also being asked to become different teachers that is to change their professional identity. This paper outlines the ways in which teachers working in NSW TAFE speak of their professional identity and suggests that their understanding of who they are in the educational project is significantly different from the identity now promoted by the dominant policies and discourses of government.