“We will appreciate each other more after this”: Teachers' construction of collective and personal identities during lockdown
Abstract
In March 2020, schools in England were closed to all but vulnerable children and the children of key workers, as part of a national effort to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Many teachers were required to work from home as remote learning was implemented. Teaching is primarily a relational profession, and previous literature acknowledges that supportive relationships with peers help to maintain teachers' resilience and commitment during challenging periods. This paper reports on findings from a small-scale study conducted in England during the first national lockdown beginning in March 2020, which explored the impact of the requirement to teach remotely on teachers' identity and peer relationships. A discourse analysis, informed by the aims and practices of discursive psychology, was conducted in order to explore the association between constructions of peer support and responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings indicate that teachers who presented their professional self-identity as collective rather than personal appeared to have a more positive perspective on the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. These findings, which have implications for policymakers and school leaders, contribute to the growing field of research on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education by showing the strong association between teachers' constructions of identity and their capacity to respond positively to the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.Citation
Spicksley, K., Kington, A. and Watkins, M. (2021) “We Will Appreciate Each Other More After This”: Teachers’ Construction of Collective and Personal Identities During Lockdown. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:703404. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703404Publisher
Frontiers MediaJournal
Frontiers in PsychologyAdditional Links
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703404/fullType
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enDescription
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Frontiers Media. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703404ISSN
1664-1078EISSN
1664-1078ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3389/fpsyg.2021.703404
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/