Becoming a homeroom teacher: spatial and temporal dimensions of identity formation

Despite sustained focus in recent years on teachers’ identity construction, alongside researchers’ increasing acknowledgement of the roles of time and space in identity formation, a paucity of work explores the role of spatial–temporal dimensions in the formation of teachers’ identities. In this study we examine how teachers’ professional identities are constructed and practiced in relation to space and time. Our analysis is grounded in theories that conceptualise space and time as entangled with social relations, and it draws on semi-structured interviews with 142 homeroom teachers, who work in primary, middle and high schools in Israel. We argue that teachers’ identity construction is a spatially and temporally embedded process. We show how participants’ identity is constructed through temporal structures of formal, longer-term ‘cycles’ (e.g. the school year) and through mostly informal, shorter-term ‘moments’ (e.g. critical incidents), as well as through significant spatial structures such as the classroom and the staffroom. We also show how school trips–a space-time outside the boundaries of school grounds and timetables–facilitate formative experiences. Our findings show how teachers’ professional identity is part of the production and reproduction of these space-time constructs, which are constructed around interactions and relationships with others.