1

CHAPTER 1. PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN EDUCATION FROM THE

PERSPECTIVE OF DIALOGICAL SELF THEORY1.

Carles Monereo. Department of Educational Psychology, Universitat Autònoma de

Barcelona (Spain).

ABSTRACT

Teaching is one of the most important and influential professions that exist. Teachers

have in their hands a huge part of human education. They educate the people who are

responsible for a world that should offer the conditions of coexistence and a satisfactory

and sustainable life. Politicians, health workers, scientists, thinkers, researchers, and also

teachers have learned the majority of what they know thanks to teachers. Besides this great

importance, the profession is also extraordinarily complex. This complexity increases

alongside the educational needs of the population, and these increases continuously.

Having up to date and structured knowledge, and being able to transmit this so as to

produce substantial and transferable learning in the population, have been and continue to

be necessary conditions in teaching. However, today, simply transmitting knowledge is not

enough. The Internet can do this, and sometimes very effectively. The challenges currently

facing humanity require cooperation and mutual support, initiative and perseverance,

critical thinking and democratic values, imagination and creativity… We have seen this

during the COVID19 crisis. We require human professionals with educational intentionality

who know what it is important to teach, which is the most appropriate way to do it

according to the socio-cultural context, and why this must be done. The world needs

1
Monereo, C. (Ed. (2022). The Identity of Education Professionals. Positioning, training & innovation.
Charlotte, USA: Information Age Publishing (IAP).
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teachers with the fourth pillar of education, according to the Delors report: professionals

that know how to be teachers.

This chapter and by extension the book are aimed precisely at constructing a responsible

professional identity committed to the challenges that humanity must address. To do that,

we have adopted the Dialogical Self Theory as an explanatory framework. We consider that

this is the theory that currently best describes and analyses the dynamic, situated and

pluridimensional qualities of identity.

KEYWORDS: Teacher Identity, Dialogical Self Theory, Dialogical Dynamic

Grammar, Teaching Education.

1. BEING A TEACHER: WANTING TO IS NOT ENOUGH.

Traditionally, the term “vocation”, the idea that someone feels a “calling” to exercise a

specific task or profession, is only used for the religious orders and for teachers. The most

positive interpretation of this fact would be that in both cases the motivation consists in

serving people and the community. These are not professions that make you rich. The

salary is rather a symbolic compensation because many of the rewards cannot be measured

or paid with money. However, there is another, more negative, interpretation which

suggests that only the least ambitious and least competent people go into professions like

these which involve so much responsibility but are paid so badly.

Both ideas are clearly present in the collective representations of teachers and in popular

consciousness. Crosswell and Wlliott (2004) held in-depth interviews with a sample of

teachers with different levels of professional backgrounds, in various types of schools and

educational levels. They asked what had marked their educational commitment. The answer

was unanimous: passion! They understood passion in terms of dedicating their own time;

focusing on students’ individual needs; as a responsibility to convey knowledge, attitudes,

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values; as “maintaining professional knowledge” and as engagement with the school

community.

On the contrary, McBeath (2012) affirms: “Wherever teachers have been questioned

about their priorities and satisfiers, in South-America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe or North

America, they cite the importance of recognition and respect for the challenges they rise to

on a daily basis. However, their expectations of being the professional shapers of the next

generations have to contend with being cast as a ‘trade’, associated with minimal training

requirements, ease of entry, low pay and benefits, and located at the bottom of the civil

service ladder, in what has cynically been referred to as ‘women’s work” (p.14). The author

adds that between 75% and 90% of teachers, with specific variations from country to

country, consider that they will not be rewarded for improving their work.

We must not forget that we are talking about what is considered to be one of the most

complex professions in the world. In a prospective study done by the Oxford University

(Frey & Osborne, 2017) with a sample of more than 700 professionals, only professions

related to health and psychological services came ahead of teaching among the jobs that it

would be most difficult to replace by computers in the future.

We write this book in the middle of the crisis of the COVID19 pandemic. Most teachers

and students’ comments on social networks are more favorable to face to face lessons than

to online classes through a computer. To educate is far from just to transmit contents in an

enjoyable and comprehensible way. Empathic communication, active and patient listening,

personalized support, the capacity to create complicity and engagement, and giving an

example in terms of behavior and values are qualities of a good teacher which not even the

best artificial intelligence application could offer. To paraphrase Hubert Hermans (2020),

training teachers in any given moment is as complex as the challenges faced by citizens and
 4

society at that time. And without any doubt, this 21st century presents extraordinarily

complex challenges.

If we consider the challenges outlined by UNESCO in its agenda for the next decade,

Education 2030 (United Nations, 2015), we note the huge extension and complexity of the

education of future citizens (See Figure 1.1.).

These seventeen challenges must orient every stage of education, from infant school to

the university. Likewise, these would be developed at different levels: personal (the

individual), local (the community), and global (the planet). Thus, if we take the eleventh

challenge, sustainable cities, and communities, I as a teacher must aim for my students to

be able to recycle their rubbish (personal), to know how to denounce the companies in their

area that pollute the environment (local), and to act, through their protests and their votes,

so as to pressurize politicians and supranational institutions into legislating in favor of

environmental protection (global).

However, the complexity is not just in the curriculum. Many other things make the

teacher’s job more difficult. Some of the most cited factors are the lack of student discipline

in class, the new requirements for extracurricular activities, the pressure to include current

topics (e.g., gender issues, ecology, positive coexistence, and, this last year, health

prevention) and new methodologies (integration of ICT, project-based learning, problem-

based learning or resolving cases studies), the inclusion of cultural diversity, the reforms

and innovations imposed by different bodies (parents’ associations, school administrations,

governments), and the lack of support from public administration. The ongoing impact of

all these factors is very clear. The degree of burnout and amount of sick leave for

psychological problems among teachers is one of the highest of all professions. The high

rate of abandonment of the profession is alarming: one in every five teachers leave teaching
 5

(Fuller, 2008), and in some states of the USA 30% of those who have been teaching

between 3 and 5 years abandon the profession (Darling-Hammond,1998).

The responses to this situation have focused on trying to remedy or at least minimize the

problems through ongoing training. The different issues have been dealt with in talks,

courses, seminars and workshops, whether oriented on specific subject areas or as inter-

and transdisciplinary programs, and employing active and participative training

methodologies. However, these initiatives have been insufficient, and, on many occasions,

they have increased resistance to change, a characteristic which is frequently attributed to

the teachers as a group (Guthrie, 2011).

From our point of view, one of the main problems has been to forget that all these

conflict factors, that undoubtedly exist, do not act on teacher’s opinions, attitudes,

behaviour and decisions in a direct way and without intermediaries. These pressures and

conflicts are debated and resolved at a mental level, in intrapsychological dialogue. In this,

we must also take into account many personal factors, such as: epistemological

perspectives, the level of job satisfaction, the feeling of competence and agency,

experiences of being misunderstood, loneliness and isolation, economic needs, the family

context, relationships with colleagues, etc.

In other words, learning how to be a teacher goes far beyond training based on

understanding, handling, and managing these external factors. Learning how to be a teacher

means building a teacher self-identity; making sense of one’s self as a teacher (Jenlink,

2021).

2. BUILDING TEACHER IDENTITY.

Douwe Beijaard (2019) states in his monographic presentation “Teacher learning as

identity learning: models, practices, and topics”: “It is increasingly acknowledged that
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teacher learning and development includes more than learning subject matter, pedagogical

content knowledge, theories of teaching and learning, and skills to turn that all into

practical action. Learning to teach is an identity making process (...) Teacher learning,

therefore, can and should be conceptualized as teacher identity learning.” (p.1).

The aim must be to build a specific professional identity as a teacher. We are not

referring to a “teaching personality” in an invariable, monolithic, continuous, and inflexible

sense, as it was presented until the middle of the last century — and this view still exists

today — on the basis of a current of thought based on objectivism and positivism (Baijaard

et al., 2005). We refer rather to a flexible, versatile, and strategic identity; an identity

capable of adapting itself to the different contexts which currently coexist in educational

centers.

The teacher we need will begin by adopting an identity as a learner, or apprentice, and

then an identity as an apprentice teacher. Subsequently, they will become a practicing

teacher, and perhaps one day they will become a point of reference for their colleagues

(Alsup, 2006). During their career, they will need to adopt different roles: to be a specialist

who gives instruction in their area of expertise, a communicator able to connect with

diverse students and families, a teacher who uses properly the available didactic and

technological resources, a tutor who ensures both daily coexistence in the classroom and

students’ ethical and emotional development, a collaborator who knows how to work in a

team alongside their colleagues, or sometimes to be a mentor and academic advisor who

helps less experienced teachers. Throughout their career, they also might carry out

leadership and management tasks, as well as studying their own effectiveness as a teacher,

or that of the school, as well as analyzing what students have achieved when they leave the

school.
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As we see it, this construction must be multifaceted, contextualized, dynamic and in the

line of a postmodern vision which rejects the existence of absolute truths, and defends the

need to relativize cause-effect interpretations relating to the socio-cultural context in which

the phenomenon occurs (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Olsen, 2008). Identity is built on

interactions with social discourses (Gergen, 1994), on the discourses of the communities of

practice in which we participate (Lave & Wenger, 1991), but also in our mind. Identity is

built through the voices we have internalized over time (Arvaja & Sarja, 2021).

As we say in the title to this introduction, wanting to be a teacher, having a vocation, is

an indispensable condition in this profession, because of its complexity and the

characteristics we have mentioned. However, this condition is not enough. To become a

teacher purposefully and intentionally, professionals should begin to build their self-

teacher’s identity, being conscious that this is not something finite but rather constitutes a

continuous and permanent process of reconstruction.

2.1. Current Perspectives on the Study of Teacher Identity.

After a detailed review of the latest teacher identity studies and the different ways of

conceptualizing identity, we identify five main theoretical approaches, within the

postmodern perspective mentioned above. We will now briefly describe these approaches.

2.1.1. Identity as a teaching approach: learner-oriented approach vs. teacher-oriented

approach.

One of the most recurrent topics in current research about teacher identity is the

distinction between student-centered teaching, and teaching-centered on the contents and

the teacher themself. Teachers who orient their teaching to students and to their learning

process, rather than on the contents to be learnt, promote learning autonomy much more,

through metacognitive methods which aim at learners becoming aware of their own mental
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processes when learning and making decisions. In contrast, when teachers prioritize

content, this leads to rote learning and the cognitive skills acquired are more linked to a

specific discipline, and less transferable to other disciplines (Hmelo-Silver & Barrows,

2006; Meirink, et al., 2009). Despite these results and that at least conceptually teachers

defend learner-oriented approaches, in practice the content-oriented and the teacher-

oriented approaches predominate. This contradiction is due to external barriers that seem to

impede change. The external barriers include study plans that are strongly centered on

contents, the lack of students’ skills and positive learning attitudes, students not being used

to self-regulation learning, or teachers’ lack of appropriate training and background

regarding metacognitive methods of proceeding (Assen et al., 2018; Ertmer, 2005; Moust,

et al., 2005).

2.1.2. Identity as a self-narration.

The consideration of professional identity as a self-narration has a long tradition in

pedagogy and educational psychology research. Some examples are professional

autobiographies, professional diaries, life stories, professional blogs, etc. Within this

framework, Schaefer and Clandinin (2019) have looked at teachers that create stories in

order to live within their personal and professional environments; in other words, stories

regarding their personal and professional identity. Analyzing these stories, the authors

suggest that teachers superimpose both scenarios and that they commonly express their

fatigue, their need to belong to the educational center, and the desire to have a place in the

educational community, of successful collaboration with families, to be seen as “good

teachers” or to be well-integrated and influential members among teaching staff. In

contrast, teachers do not reflect in their diaries on their pedagogical conceptions or their

teaching methods. The authors recommend making changes in teacher training in the
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direction of training whole people and not only thinking about explicit theories or standard

professional competencies, but also about the person and their overall concerns.

2.1.3. The role-identity

A different perspective of identity is that formulated by Garner and Kaplan (2019). It is

based on assimilating the identity to the different roles that a teacher can develop, e.g., roles

as a teacher, as a scientist, as a learner of their specific subject, or as a work colleague.

In a learning context, these different roles interact and this interaction can cause tensions

and clashes. For example, let us imagine a teacher who participates in a professional

development program. Here she has a learner role-identity as well as a teacher role-identity.

During the program, the teacher can shift her teacher role-identity to a more student-

oriented role-identity, influenced by the student teacher role-identity. The Dynamic

Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) attempts to explain how changes in identity

come about through the influence of different factors such as one’s own epistemological

beliefs about personal and professional goals, the possible actions in a particular

situation/context, or emotions. The interaction between all these factors determines the

emergence of one or another role-identity in each context.

2.1.4. Identity as a trajectory determined by personal agency.

Despite the fact that teachers frequently have shared experiences of studying,

educational reforms, in short, certain historical-social contexts that affect their professional

careers and identity, for Ye & Zhao (2019) the key element that determines their self

identity is agency, that is, the decisions and actions exercised by each teacher according to

their personal biography, their educational beliefs and their values, all of which gives

meaning to their professional teaching activity. To this first personal level, we must add a

second interpersonal level. This second level is related to the teacher’s relationships with
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their colleagues and, especially, with the school leadership team that can encourage or

curtail certain decisions. Finally, there is the institutional level, that is to say the rules, laws,

the project of the educational center, and educational administrations. These distinct levels

interact in different ways in the professional trajectory, giving rise to distinct professional

identities.

2.1.5. Teaching identity promoted by significant moments and themes.

Some studies (Leeferink, et al., 2019) show that a teacher’s identity is often focused on

some very specific, even idiosyncratic, issues and events, which form part of their personal

biography and to which they attach enormous importance. People who were bullied at

school and who are now afraid of looking foolish in front of students or who come from

another professional field and are worried that they are unable to speak and think as

teachers. Our research group found such issues in situations of transition between

educational levels, for example, from infant education to primary education with the

insecurity experienced by the teacher for not being “academic” enough and focussing too

much on play (Monereo, 2019). In these cases, the literature refers to “peak moments”

(Waterhouse et al., 2021), “bumpy experiences” (Romano, 2006; Vloet et al., 2020), or

“critical incidents” (Badia et al., 2021). These are unexpected situations of great emotional

impact, which require an immediate response, on the basis of personal insights, intuition

and underlying values. Subsequently, they can give rise to a deeper analysis that leads to

the adoption of different conceptions and alternative teaching strategies. Specifically, Badia

et al. (2021) found that 53% of incidents refer to Classroom Critical Incidents Management

(being shocked, understanding, planning, monitoring, and assessing actions in the face of

the Critical Incident); 22% of incidents relate to Teaching & Learning processes
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(Pedagogical interaction, didactic strategies, content expert and emotional strategies) and

25% of incidents concern the teacher themself (teacher’s roles and professional learning).

In a similar vein, Stenberg & Maaranen (2020) have referred to the distinct dilemmas

that teachers must confront when there are discrepancies between their personal practical

theories and their professional experience in practice. Personal practical theories are belief

systems, generally tacit and unconscious, which are employed by teachers in decision-

making processes and in their professional activity. The identification of emerging

dilemmas can make these theories more explicit and conscious. Authors underline

dilemmas that arise in clashes between ideals and institutional reality, between criticisms

and acceptance, between the supervising teacher and one’s own viewpoint, focusing on

oneself or on students, between private life and work, between feeling incompetent and

seeing oneself as an expert…

The intentional analysis of these peak experiences, critical incidents, or dilemmas can

decisively influence the construction of the teacher identity. In consequence, this analysis

represents an interesting element in teacher training.

It is undeniable that a teacher’s professional identity is influenced decisively by their

personal approach, the narratives that they employ to explain themselves and their actions,

the roles they play, their agency and the professional trajectories they have, their personal

practical theories, or by the “peak experiences” and dilemmas they must confront.

However, all these distinct approaches offer us fragmented portrayals of identity. We

consider that Dialogical Self Theory integrates all of these factors within a comprehensive

and explanatory mental dynamic.

2.2. Dialogical Self Theory as an Integrative Approach to Teacher Identity.

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Dialogical Self Theory (DST) has been developed since the beginning of the nineties by

Hubert Hermans (Hermans & Kempen, 1993; Hermans et al., 1992). From this framework,

the self, or if one prefers the term “the identity”, is shaped by a dynamic multiplicity of I-

positions, with their respective voices in constant dialogue. In every social context, the “I”

positions itself; that is to say, every person takes a version of themself, trying to adjust

themself to the demands of that context. We adopt multiples positions to interact with our

environment, both the external or public one, and the internal or mental one. This does not

mean losing the uniqueness of the self. We continue to be and have a consciousness of a

permanent and substantial self, but, like a character in the novels of Dostoevsky or Sabato,

“our self” can in certain circumstances be an artist, a hero, a writer, or a maniac, without

ceasing to be the same character. We continue to be defined by a singular existential

trajectory, a unique one that makes us always recognizable.

The fact that Vygotsky, Bakhtin, and Hermans used the dramatic genre to illustrate the

interactive dynamics where our self is built is not accidental.

Etymologically, the word “drama” comes from ancient Greek and means action. All

dramatic acting has a double quality: a) it is focused on a conflictive episode between two

or more characters and b) it is sustained in the dialogue between those characters or, often,

in a character’s dialogue with themself. In this “inter” dialogue, the character interacts

between different ways of placing themself in the plot, in a certain time and space, and in

distinct biographical episodes. Through these episodes, we build, in the words of McLean

et al. (2007), a situated story that integrates the multiple life episodes into a coherent

autobiographical narrative. We embed our personal, family, and professional backgrounds

within this narrative.

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Such narratives have the function of building an integrated self-configuration in the

adult world. They can diachronically integrate the different life episodes and situations that

are experimented over the years into meaningful stories (Vieira & Henriques, 2014).

The interrelated episodes that shape our existence have a dialogical essence and

consequently they need “others” to dialogue with. Any knowledge activity, whether it is

based on talking, writing, reading, or thinking, is an interactive practice, where a person has

to take a position with respect to another (Tavares & Rosa, 2019).

Within the DST framework, in the mental or intrapsychological plane, that “other” can

be an other-I-myself, that is an internal position of oneself: I as a teacher dialoguing with I

as a historiographer, chemist, or doctor. But it can also be an other-on-me, an external

position with which we dialogue. It can be represented by I as a student, I as Vygotsky, I as

Charlie Brown, or I as educational law. In these cases, I converse with the voice that I

interpret from another that may be real — someone we know directly, such as a student, or

indirectly, like Vygotsky — fictitious, like Charlie Brown, or with a social discourse with

which I am familiar, such as a law. At a social or inter-psychological level, these dialogues

are produced in the public sphere, with people with whom we have different levels of

familiarity and confidence. These external dialogues are usually accompanied by an inner

dialogue (eg: What is this person looking for by asking me this question?).

It is important to state that this dialogue requires both a closeness to and a certain

distance from the other. The other contributes with new knowledge to the knowledge that I

already have in me and about me. In fact, the dialogue will be productive, in terms of

allowing us to learn and progress, if in addition to being viable — that is, if we share

enough linguistic, cultural and personal knowledge to allow us at least to understand each

other— it involves positions that are not necessarily antagonistic, but which embrace
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different perspectives that allow negotiation (Hermans, 2001); an idea very close to that of

the zone of proximal development proposed by Vygotsky.

As we have seen, the different approaches to the study of identity that we highlighted in

the previous section are clearly gathered and integrated in the DST. The identity based on

narrative, personal trajectories, the subject’s agency, the critical incidents and dilemmas

that shape certain biographical episodes, or the learner-oriented vs teacher-oriented

approaches are not excluded by the DST. For example, the latter approach can be

understood as the adoption of one or another I-position according to the contents, the

educational objectives, or the students. Concerning identity roles, the notion of I-position is

actually more flexible and dynamic as it poses a “personalized role”. To the obligations of

the tutor role as they are socially and contractually defined, the tutor I-position adds the

idiosyncrasies and subjective perspective of each tutor. Thus, the tasks that tutors are

expected to perform on the basis of their social role will be the same, but from their I-

position each tutor will be unique in their way of interpreting and performing that role.

With regards to Personal practical theories, every I-position can their own way of

interpreting —in their conceptions—, of acting —their strategies—, and of feeling —their

emotions—, that is to say, their personal beliefs and theories. As Stenberg & Maaranen

(2020) note, on many occasions, these I-p will be discordant or will directly contradict one

another. This will produce conflictive discussions which will lead, according to each

particular case, to different repositioning: the concealment or elimination of a certain I-p,

its reformulation, its promotion, or the creation of a third I-p, etc.

In our opinion, this capacity of integration of the DST makes it a general theory of

human identity with a huge capability of inclusion and transferability between distinct

fields of human knowledge. To cite some of the areas where this theory has been applied,
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we can mention psychotherapy (Gonçalves et al., 2009; Hermans y Dimaggio, 2007),

personality psychology (Hermans, 2001; Raggatt, 2002), human development (Bertau et al.,

2012; Fogel, 1993), neurobiology (Lewis, 2002), organizations (Valencia, 2020; Van Loon,

2018), social and cultural diversity (Abreu et al., 2013; Gillespie, 2008), literature…

Despite having obtained broad acceptance and having extended rapidly, the theory is not

free of critics, from both within and from outside its theoretical field. (Bamberg &

Zielke,2007; Ferreira, et al., 2006; Suszek, 2017; Vandamme, 2014). A consideration of the

main published criticisms allows us to group those which are most widely accepted under

four headings:

a) DST underestimates the importance of the integration and consistency of identity

DST in no way denies the need for self-stability and self-coherence. From our point of

view, it offers a more precise and more complete explanation of the compatibility between

a dynamic and flexible identity and a continuous and coherent identity. On one hand, the

concept of I-p already contains the principle of continuity and discontinuity. The “I”

involves the acquired knowledge, the background that gives stability to the subject, while

“position” relates to change and the need to locate oneself in the time and place of a

specific context. The concepts that best explain the duality of dynamism-consistency are

the continuous centrifugal and centripetal movements that characterize our self (Henry &

Mollstedt, 2021): “Basically the two movements are mutually complementing, and they are

both needed in order to find a balance between change, challenge, and innovation on the

one hand, and consistency, coherence, and order on the other hand.” (Meijers & Hermans,

2018; p 10).

On the other hand, the theory is opposed to certain ultra-relativist perspectives, which

deny the existence of a coherent and substantial identity (Hermans y Dimaggio, 2007):
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“some social-constructionist conceptions of the self-have led to the radical rejection of a

substantial self and resulted in a shift toward a non-substantial, fluid notion of subjectivity

(…). Apparently, for some social constructionist accounts, non-homogeneity and

contingency in discursive positioning are taken as reasons to reject the self as a theoretical

notion. In contrast to these views, we argue (...) for a substantial embodied self that

includes multiplicity, heterogeneity, contradiction, and tension. We see such phenomena

not as an impasse for a theoretical notion of the self, but as intrinsic aspects that are

‘owned’ by an embodied self” (p. 42-43).

Every change in the self implies discontinuity and instability, but then it tends to acquire

continuity and coherency, only to come under tension again at some point. Some positions

take on more stabilizing functions (e.g., core-positions and meta-positions), while others

tend to induce changes (e.g., promoter positions).

b) DST suffers from reductionism

Some critics have argued that the full mental dynamic cannot be reduced to the dialogue

between positions. Other factors must be considered, such as the subject’s conceptions and

emotions. But in another context we could point out that neither can the full social dynamic

be reduced to public and private discourses. There are earthquakes, pandemics, coups

d’état… but, from a psychosocial point of view, what moves the different social groups’

reactions to these global accidents and incidents are the “narratives”: the way mass media,

politicians, or “influencers” interpret and communicate these events. Even at a pure

individual-cognitive level, it is recognized that we do not remember the episodes we

experienced as they really happened, but rather as we have explained or narrated them to

ourselves. On the other hand, I-positions integrate these conceptual and emotional factors in

the voices though which they are expressed. There seems to be little basis for the idea that
 17

there are theories, beliefs, emotions, distinct skills, etc, “floating” in our mind, without

these being linked to a “mental context”. I-positions represent those narratives and the

mental context where all these factors are situated.

c) DST is a counterintuitive and unrealistic theory, which contradicts widespread beliefs

This criticism is easily refutable if we consider the numerous scientific theories that

refute popular beliefs and the flawed theories that people hold on the basis of direct human

observation. In any case, DST has generated a set of analogies to make it more

comprehensible, in the same way as other theories use analogies and metaphors (eg,

theories of information processing with computer systems, or blood circulation with

electrical circuits). Hermans (2006) does not deny the metaphoric sense of his theoretical

proposal. Here are some of the most suggestive metaphors:

- The mind as a micro-society, in which various positions (people/characters)

and their respective voices (discourses) dialogue with each other, as occurs in the

public sphere (different types of dialogue, different ways of solving problems,

different functions of those dialogues, characters with different degrees of influence,

etc.).

- The mind as a social laboratory where we can simulate and experiment with

more or less conflictive dialogical situations, where we can be more perspectivist

and empathic with others, and know better our own strengths and weaknesses. In so

far as we can represent and dialogue with people from other cultures, origins,

ideologies, genders, religions, etc. in our minds, our own tolerance and open-

mindedness will probably increase.

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- The mind as a social space (agora), where we can find different types of

discourse: public and private, collective and individual, professional and personal,

external and internal…

- The mind as a political parliament, where different ideologies, opinions, and

perspectives debate with each other. In his latest work, “Citizenship Education and

the personalization of Democracy” (Hermans & Bartels, 2021), Hermans defends

the need for a democratic mind, where tolerance, self-criticism, flexibility, etc.,

have to prevail. A democratic mind is a step towards achieving a democratic

society.

- The mind as an inter-experiential project, which blurs the frontiers between

fields, disciplines, social areas, and life experiences. We only need to look at the

contributions submitted to the successive editions of the “International Conference

on Dialogical Self” to see that this theory can be the basis of research in clinical,

educational, sociological, artistic or organizational fields. Given that it is a general

theory of the mental dynamic, it can be applied to practically any human activity.

However, this does not imply explanations of phenomena that are non-situated and non-

contextual. On the contrary, as we have already stated, we always position ourselves in a

specific space and time and in relation to specific mediational, socio-cultural and discursive

circumstances. Positioning yourself always supposes adopting a position that is socio-

psychological and, consequently, idiosyncratic and contextual.

In any case, in this life project which gradually constructs our existence, maturing could

mean establishing interactions between different contexts of development and spheres of

activity, creating inter-experiential networks which allow us, for example, to recognize
 19

ourselves despite the time that has passed, and also to recognize the evolution of our ideas

in the different stages of our life.

d) DST presents confusing terms and concepts

DST has also been criticized for the fact that, when describing some concepts that are

part of the internal dynamics between positions, some ambiguities and confusion have

arisen, such as identifying different phenomena under the same concept, or giving different

names to the same phenomenon.

It is true that as this is a relatively novel theory that has grown very quickly in the last

five years, some authors that have appropriated it have forced the meaning of certain

notions or have introduced others of their own. This tendency to distort a given theory in

different ways and for different interests is relatively common. We only need to point to the

numerous versions that exist of the Vygotsky-inspired socio-constructivist theory.

In any case, if we go to the sources, its creator, Hubert Hermans, has made an effort to

define the terms used and illustrate them with examples; in one of his latest texts, he

includes a glossary (Hermans, 2018). In this regard, Valsiner (2000b) emphasizes that the

different notions of DST function as “umbrella concepts” that cover different formulations

which share similar assumptions.

Trying to link a theory with one’s own context is always a reasonable option that can

contribute positively to the development of science, as long as it is done from an attitude

that is respectful, citing the previous contributions, and positive, focusing on completing,

clarifying, and disseminating the existing theoretical construct.

Lucius-Hoene (2007) has lyrically summarized the evolution of DST: “The dialogical

perspective is undoubtedly a most creative and intriguing cornucopia of ideas, a research

heuristic and a creative battlefield, but it should not yet be considered a theory of the self.
 20

To make use of another metaphor, rather than being a precise navigational instrument, the

dialogical self theory may be better thought of as a flotilla of boats out on the sea, looking

to discover new lands” (p. 247).

In any case, we consider that the explorative phase of DST has been completed. Thanks

to the huge quantity and quality of the literature it has generated, it can be considered in its

own right a powerful theory about the Self. In years to come, it will need greater empirical

back-up to keep it developing. This support will require advances on a clearer, more

complete, and more widely shared “grammar of the dialogical dynamic” that occurs in our

minds. Now we will deal with this last concept.

3. THE NEED FOR A DIALOGICAL DYNAMIC GRAMMAR.

Grammar is usually defined as the group of restrictions that exist when we compose

linguistic structures to effectively communicate with others. In our case, we refer to the

adoption of some coordinates that will allow us to organize and analyze the nature and

characteristics of the mental dialogues produced between our distinct mental positions,

from the perspective of DST. Our objective is only to put on the table the main elements

that hinder the agreements necessary to advance in our collective research. This is a matter

of special importance in a more prescriptive field such as education, which requires well-

defined units of analysis and intervention if it is to positively intervene in the development

of more strategic identities.

The first coordinate refers to the need to clarify the conceptual relations between the

more elemental dialogical notions: role, self, identity, position, sub-position, and voice

(Freire y Branco, 2016; Power, 2007; Raggatt, 2007; Rosaa & Gonçalves, 2016).

Following Rodgers and Scott (2008), the Self can be considered as the element which

possesses agency, intentionality, and creates meanings, especially those meanings about its
 21

own nature, which can be termed identities. Identities, then, would be the different versions

in which the Self would manifest itself, with respect to the main social settings in which

human beings develop. A priori, we would have an identity concerning the familiar

scenario, another in the personal scenario, linked with freely chosen activities and relations,

another related to learning and academic activities, and finally a professional identity, for

which we usually receive an economic compensation (with variations in every cultural

niche). In each scenario, there are socially determined tasks, which are accepted by the

community as “natural” — though once again these will vary between cultural

communities. We refer here to the roles that can be explicitly stated in a contract or

agreement. In education, for example, a teacher has a role as an evaluator that they must

necessarily play, but how each teacher positions themself in this role is quite another

matter.

I-positions are idiosyncratic and personalized ways of placing oneself and socializing,

both with oneself and with others, in a certain context, within a social scenario. We can

distinguish between personal positions, which are related to leisure time and family

scenarios, and professional positions, related to academic and employment scenarios. In the

educational field, at the center of the teacher’s professional identity, the majority of I-

positions are related to a role. For example, one teacher can have a position of “hard

marker” and a colleague one of “generous marker”. The adjective of each position is

important because it individualizes and subjectivizes it. The adjective “positions” the

subject in front of others, and constitutes the I-position’s main distinguishing feature.

Certainly, there are roles not linked to I-positions (e.g., a university teacher that is meant to

do research but does not do so), as well as individualized positions that do not correspond

to an established role (for example, in some conflictive areas, some teachers take on a
 22

security role while children are entering and leaving school; or in the COVID-19 pandemic,

some teachers carry out health checks). Over the years, these positions can be

institutionalized and turned into roles.

In the words of Hermans (2018), sub-positions are the different ways in which an I-

position manifests itself. At a grammatical level, it would imply adding circumstantial

complements; for example, me as a generous evaluator in Philosophy. These different

positions and sub-positions are manifested and expressed through their respective voices,

accompanied by non-verbal language, in the different types of dialogue, both inter and

intrapsychological dialogues. These dialogues are built on the social contexts in which the

subject participates. Analyzing these voices, we can identify how the subjects position

themselves in a dialogue, e.g., as an expert in a subject, as a member of the teaching staff,

as a mentor of a colleague (Aveling, et al., 2014). Likewise, we can analyze the content of

the dialogue, inferring the conceptions, strategies, and/or feelings associated with his/her I-

position (Rosa & Tavares, 2013).

A second coordinate would consist in differentiating an I-position from the function that

it performs in the mental dynamic. The same position can perform various functions, and a

function can be performed from various I-positions. For example, the tolerant evaluator

position can act as a promoter position of the tolerant tutor. At the same time, it can work as

a meta-position, which supervises other teacher positions as the instructor position or the

position as a member of the teaching staff. In any case, it is important to note that it is not

fortuitous or has the same consequences that a function is linked to one or the other I-

position. Since the professional teaching position often requires some emotional

detachment, it is possible that it is more common to have a meta-positional function

 23

associated with it. However, that same teacher in their position as father or mother may not

be meta-positional. This is a hypothesis that should be validated.

The third coordinate would relate to the positive or negative valency of I-positions. On

the one hand, positive positions would be associated with centripetal movements. These

would promote integration, coherence, agreement (eg, core-positions, third-positions,

coalitions, etc.). On the other, there are the positions that generate conflicts, opposition, and

tensions (counter-positions, over-positions, shadow-positions), related to centrifugal

movements.

A fourth coordinate would differentiate the distinct levels of conscience that some

functions imply: while shadow-positions are maintained at a low level of conscience, mask-

positions suppose a higher level, and meta-positions even more so.

To apply these coordinates in a concrete situation, let us analyze the following Figure

1.2.

As we can see, we have teacher1 in his instructor role. Initially, he adopts two

professional positions: I-p1 as a maths expert, and I-p2 as an educator in his subject.

However, as he gets to know the students, he sees the degree of competition between them:

students answer at the same time, they argue because of the grades, and they laugh at those

who make mistakes. Given this conflictive situation, his initial expert and educational core-

positions enter into conflict with each other. This conflictive situation generates a counter-

position of concern. This is finally resolved thanks to the creation of a third position, the

mediator teacher position, that promotes class innovation. Students now work in balanced

groups and they compete through games and dilemmas. There has been a re-positioning due

to an incident.
 24

In this case, the re-positioning seems to be appropriate and successful, but things will

not always be like this. Teacher training that enables us to be more aware of our positions,

of how we act in the face of conflicts and how to build a more complete and strategic

professional identity, is essential. Now we will consider some proposals concerning teacher

training.

4. PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY FORMATION FOR TEACHING.

Becoming a good teacher is very hard work: in reality it usually takes a lifetime, a

lifetime of self-construction based on well-founded, explicit theories, but also on beliefs

drawn from practical experience, on implicit and less conscious theories. These are

especially grounded in conflicts and personal and professional incidents. These critical

situations have been overcome through a continuous re-positioning, which is a product of

internal dialogues and decision-making processes. We could say that the teacher

professional identity is dialogically and dialectically constructed.

However, teacher training, both initial and ongoing, has not traditionally been focused

on professional identity. In general, and as we will see, on the one hand, disciplinary,

didactic, and pedagogical contents have been prioritized, while practical experiences and

their corresponding analyses have also been considered. However, these aspects have been

treated as isolated blocks, without an explicit attempt to integrate them. Less still has

serious and direct attention been paid (except for honorable exceptions, such as the

narrative perspectives mentioned above) to personal trajectories, to the critical moments we

have lived through, to the discourses that have been promoted and, especially, to the types

of dialogue that we use internally. All these aspects have either been absent or have been

dealt with in a very tangential way in teacher training.

 25

Fortunately, identity as a unit of analysis and intervention in teacher training is now

gradually taking on the importance that it is due. The number of scientific publications that

include it in the title is continuously growing. However, and despite this increase, there are

still few studies that are interested in mental dynamics as a key to changes in identity.

As we have tried to argue in the previous pages, changing identity supposes changing

the dynamic of positions that arises in teachers’ minds. To change this dynamic, or its

grammar, mental dialogues must be modified. For that, we must introduce new discourses,

emphasize certain voices, create specific conflicts, and promote alternative positionings

when interpreting certain phenomena and explaining them to ourselves.

From our point of view, this would be the main task of the academic advisor and teacher

trainer. In table 1.1., we summarize the principal currents in teacher training today.

As we can observe, we have just considered approaches based on psychological and

social constructivist epistemology. On our understanding, this is the best perspective to

explain what it means to learn in-depth and in its full complexity. However, the distinct

approaches are differentiated in their intended goal.

In the case of modalities centered on acquiring conceptual, attitudinal and procedural

knowledge, the goal is to train teachers who can learn educative theories to finally carry out

practice based on them. They are based on direct instruction, where teachers pre-construct

the conceptual framework to be conveyed; inductive mechanisms, where students must

discover the knowledge that sustains certain phenomena to re-construct their explanatory

schemes; or on the public negotiation of meanings with and between students, where

students help each other and co-construct knowledge. In all of them, students are expected

to appropriate knowledge substantially and functionally by themselves.

 26

The main teaching and learning goal of the second block is focused on competences. We

understand as competences the knowledge clusters that allow us to solve important personal

and social challenges and issues. In this framework, teaching is commonly based on

transferring competences through a process of progressively removing supports, until

students achieve autonomy in decision-making processes and in the application of such

competences. In initial phases, student teachers act passively and dependently, as observers.

They analyze how certain competences are managed. Progressively, they adopt greater

responsibility in the application and activation of competences while still being monitored.

Finally, students may be skilled in employing different teaching competences, without

external aid, and consistently in every context. On many occasions, we have referred to

strategic teachers, those who know when, how, for what, and why to apply their

competences (Mejías & Monereo, 2016).

It is important to recognize that both modalities could impact on identity and promote

powerful and sustained changes in identity. However, we must note that this impact would

be produced indirectly on mental dynamics, because it is not the main objective of the

intervention.

In the third block, the main center of interest is the change in professional identity

through the change in I-positions. This change can take different forms: it can be about

eliminating a position or constructing a new one. The most typical case is an alteration that

affects an existing position by changing its functionality (eg, changing into an over-

position, or a promoter of other ones), allying itself with others, shifting its importance and

influence (for example, becoming more central or more peripheral), or being subsumed

within another (a third position). To generate these changes, it is necessary to create or

recreate situations which are immersive and provoke a commitment, so that teachers feel
 27

moved to re-position themselves. The options can be ordered in terms of their emotional

impact: from those with less impact, such as the analysis of potential but external cases,

role-playing, or dramatizations; going through the analysis of cases that are closer to home

and with real testimonies; and reaching the point of analyzing conflicts and incidents that

have happened to us or are happening at that very moment.

In any case, the aim will always be for student teachers to able to develop a meta-

position function among their positions. This function allows teachers to attain the needed

level of distanced consciousness so as to actively reorder their “mental society”. In the

literature there are a great number of tools for registering and analyzing which can

encourage this process, and which appear in this book. These include mapping, Journey

Plot, Identity Community Plot, Personal Position, Repertoire, Composition Work,

endograms, cross-axed charts, etc.

Although there are still few research results about teacher training from the identity

position approach, there are already some contributions that should be taken into account:

a) Teacher training based on real practices (such as videos or dramatizations), in which

incidents and conflict situations are introduced and analyzed, is more determinant on the

production of changes than those just centered on teachers’ perceptions and representations,

or on imaginary and less-contextualized situations (Badia & Becerril, 2016; Monereo,

Weise & Álvarez, 2013; Van den Bos & Brouwer, 2014). In less realistic situations,

teachers tend to justify and excuse their directive positions, saying that they are victims of

the curriculum, students, or institutional pressures. (Assen et al., 2018). The more

authentic, real, and close to the person the material is, the more likely it is that re-

positioning will occur.

 28

b) In the face of incidents and conflict situations that generate uncertainty in teachers,

dialogues do not always have to seek consensus. On the contrary, it may be preferable to

highlight the value of such situations in continuing to learn and accepting the divergence of

interpretations and positions (Castelijns et al., 2013; Chiva et al., 2007). A false consensus

tends to activate mask positions, false positions which are counterproductive in the medium

and long-term. Both elements are crucial: incidents that activate centripetal and centrifugal

movements, and quality and dialectical dialogues about teachers’ experiences (Henry &

Mollstedt, 2021). After all, our identity is built on what we narrate about ourselves, and

what others narrate about us.

c) Teachers who exhibit settled and solid positions, for example, senior teachers who

have extensive professional experience, are more reluctant to leave their comfort zone and

to re-position themselves (Assen et al., 2018; Bertau & Gonçalves, 2007; Vandamme,

2014). Such teachers are often unwilling to recognize incidents and tend to adapt the

context to their dominant or core-positions, always aiming for coherency. On the contrary,

teachers who feel more insecure, with less settled positions, are more open to change. They

are more likely to recognise their errors, re-position themselves, and develop a larger

number of promoter positions.

Training must be capable of resolving the tension between, on the one hand, accepting

certain chaos and incoherency in one’s mental dynamic, by opening oneself to change, and

on the other maintaining a more coherent identity system, but avoiding external influence,

and thus running the risk of stagnation and atrophy.

It could be the case that the competent teacher, faced with situations of change — for

example, a government reform — is capable of modifying their I-p repertoire but always

with the aim of maintaining internal stability and coherence. It is a continuous balancing act
 29

between adapting to circumstances and at the same time maintaining the unity of the self,

and not falling into contradictions.

As Valsiner (2007) notes, this equilibrium also includes adopting, or not, other people’s

perspectives. Simply to adopt an external perspective implies not reflecting for oneself. On

the other hand, to isolate oneself from others’ positions means blocking ourselves off from

other points of view, which might help us to rethink our positions. The dilemma could

perhaps be resolved if senior teachers, thanks to their meta-positional skills, would admit a

certain degree of conflict and instability, and if new teachers, at the mercy of promoter

positions, agreed to negotiate more conservative positions, which help to guarantee internal

peace.

d) Teachers in the 21st century must be particularly flexible so as to be able to position

themselves in each learning context. Sometimes they must adopt lecture-positions,

imparting well-structured contents; mediator-positions, negotiating meanings; and on other

occasions edutainer positions, that is to say, a teacher who educates through entertaining

students, awakening their curiosity, stimulating their creativity, and challenging their

conventions (Vandamme, 2014). Likewise, teachers must manage different teaching

environments. It is no longer a question of being a teacher specialized in, say, online work,

or in-person classes, but about being a hybrid teacher who decides which format is

preferable — in-person, blended, online… — according to the objectives being pursued and

the students they are dealing with. Unfortunately, some research shows that, for example,

science teachers do not make an explicit and intentional connection between the

pedagogical contexts they create with specific materials and the type of dialogue that can

promote their learning (Hetherington & Wegerif, 2018). We need teachers who use

different types of dialogue strategically.

 30

e) Finally, among the educational goals of this century, a key element must be a greater

personalization and democratization of teaching and an engagement with a more

sustainable world (Hermans & Bartels, 2021). On the one hand, students must be more

committed to the teaching-learning processes in which they are involved. They must

directly participate in what and how they learn, as well as in how they are evaluated. They

must be positioned as partners in their education, progressively assuming more

responsibility. Students should be the first in demanding an education that responds to their

motivations and needs, in insisting on an evaluation system that is fair but also reliable,

valid, and demanding, considering their academic and professional future. On the other, in

a diverse world full of conflicts of interest, they must develop democratic skills which

enable them to listen to each other without being judgmental, to tolerate discrepancies,

accept criticism, be self-critical, search for agreements, and create empathy. This will be

achieved through developing “Inner Democracy”, applying the skills we have mentioned

within our mental society, to internal dialogues and decisions. This last point connects with

the opening to this introductory chapter (see Figure 1.1.). Education must prepare citizens

who are capable of addressing the challenges that the world currently faces, the seventeen

challenges to a sustainable world proposed by UNESCO (United Nations, 2015).

A decade ago, in 2011, Andreas Schleicher (2011), coordinator of the Programme for

International Student Assessment (PISA) and current director of education at the OCDE,

indicated five changes he considered necessary to improve the quality of the teacher

profession. These are laid out in Table 1.2.

Following a review from the perspective of DST, we consider that new challenges exist

for the next decade, as shown in Table 1.3.

 31

It is our firm belief that all of these themes must be translated into their respective new I-

positions and We-positions among educational professionals over the coming decade, as we

will seek to argue and show in this book.

4. THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK.

This book aims to be “state of the art” concerning the research in educational

professional identity, an area to which our research group has contributed over the past

decade. The book’s immediate precedent is the monographic text about The change in

educational identity (Monereo, 2020). Teachers are analyzed in all their professional

versions, and we emphasize the multiple positions and sub-positions that the current socio-

educational context demands they adopt.

In Chapter 2, focused on the student-teacher identity, Liesa, Giralt-Romeu & Logorio

discuss the construction of a professional identity through students’ reconciliation with

their personal and social trajectory. A unique professional identity will be built through the

dialogical tensions between students’ positions — “I as a person”, “I as a student”, “I as a

teacher” and “I as a professional” — and their expectations. Supervised teaching practice

and student’s greater or lesser ability to reflect on and learn from this experience are

prominent elements of this transitional and identity conformation process. To optimize this

learning process, the text proposes diverse training modalities based on autobiographical

narratives, professional stories and their metaphors, the study of research into teaching and

learning, and on the analysis of their own decisions and of incidents that arose during

teaching practice, both personally and to third parties.

The other side of that same coin is covered in Chapter 3, which focuses on the identity

of the now practicing teacher, specifically within the ambit of compulsory education.

Badía, Liesa & Toom carry out a detailed study of the different research studies that exist
 32

on this topic. They categorize these into three groups: studies focused on describing identity

development, studies focused on identifying identity components, and studies focused on

distinguishing identity types. Despite the existence of many studies in this field, they offer a

fragmented vision and there are important gaps, making it difficult to obtain an integrated

overview of teacher professional identity. The authors propose an integration through DST

and they identify six possible mechanisms for promoting changes in teachers I-positions,

through the analysis of one’s own practice, with the support of different devices such as

video-cases, the analysis of critical incidents, or the collaborative participation in research

and inquiry.

Teachers must adopt an inclusive teacher core-position, particularly if they are working

in compulsory education. This aspect is covered in Chapter 4, concerned with a competent

professional that is capable of successfully including all students regardless of their ethnic

and socio-cultural origin, gender, capacities, preferences, and learning needs. Weise,

Morodo & Kullasepp argue for encouraging dialogue with counter-hegemonic voices, in

order to counteract the hegemonic discriminatory messages that tend to present differences

as deficits and to make these differences invisible through homogenizing strategies. They

propose a transition from paternalistic, pious, blaming, constraining, or assimilating

positions to other positions that are protective, supportive, caring and inclusive, through

different training alternatives.

Indeed, the need to train professionals to analyze changes and contextual diversity is the

underlying principle of Chapter 5. It is related to the teacher as an inquirer. Badia,

Konstantidini & Baan defend the need for professionals to explore how they teach and learn

in their daily professional activity so as to improve it. The authors connect with reflection-

in-action and reflection-on-action approaches, as well as with the more recent evidence-
 33

based teaching. Inquirer teachers assume the complexity of teaching, and accept that it can

only be improved by analyzing their decisions and actions in the classroom and reviewing

the existing research and educational theories. Here, a series of factors — conceptions and

strategies about the profession; metacognitive awareness about the teacher’s own intentions

and skills; the feeling of ownership, sense-making, and agency when changes and

innovations are introduced; the teacher’s capacity of self-regulation; and their adaptation to

the institutional context where they work — play an important role in the process of

ongoing learning. The factors mentioned imply new positionings in professional

development, both at a personal level, with I-positions, and a collective one with We-

positions. Training proposals based on orientations like research-based teacher education,

Action research process, or Collaborative teacher inquiry can help promote this Inquiring

Identity.

For its part, chapter 6 addresses an issue to which insufficient attention is paid, despite

its growing importance in current teacher training processes: the future teacher’s position as

mentor. The scarce research that has been carried out into this function indicates that this is

one of the functions that has most impact on the professionalization of teacher. However,

this is often a voluntary task which does not even appear in the list of a teacher’s

professional responsibilities. The authors of this chapter, García-Tamarit, Badia and Clarke,

carry out a thorough review of different ways of understanding and exercising this function:

from a monitoring/supervising position to another more focused on specific contingency

assessment or concerned about mentee-teacher emotional support. At the end of the

chapter, some indications are given for developing proper mentor training. The aim is to

train mentors who can assist student-teachers in lesson planning and designing, in the
 34

acquisition of teaching skills, in providing psychological support, and in the teacher’s

professional socialization so as to adapt themself to their workplace.

In a work dedicated to different teacher identities it was indispensable to consider the

leadership role which some experienced professionals exercise in their schools. Such leader

teachers promote important changes and innovations for the development not only of the

school community but also of the local community around the school. Chapter 7, by

Castelló, Mollà & Nail, analyses the identity position of the head teacher as an educational

leader. Authors take into account the distinct stages of training and development of a head

teacher: a prior stage before taking on the post; an initial stage where they construct their

vocation to manage a school center; the first five years of school management, which are

crucial in developing identities of educational leadership; and a final maturity stage where

re-positionings are produced. Here, school centers are considered to be learning

organizations, both at an individual and an institutional level. On the basis of two case

studies, some ideas are presented relating to the transition from a novice to an experienced

head teacher.

The next section, Chapter 8, is completely dedicated to the university teacher identity

which, while it has similarities with non-university teachers, has distinct characteristics

because of the possible work not just in communicating content but also as researchers and

creators of knowledge. The authors, Monereo, García-Tamarit and Kelchtermans, review

the needs and challenges of today’s world, which make it necessary to revise and update

university curriculums, and then analyze the I-positions that these challenges make

necessary, as well as how to promote these. Among the new emerging positions, the

authors identify that of Edutainer, education plus entertainment; the Hybrid teacher, a face

to face and online teacher; and the disseminator position. Among the training approaches,
 35

they propose biography narratives, external analyses of real teaching situations, and shared

and dramatized Critical Incidents.

The academic advisor identity is the focus of Chapter 9. This function is fairly

traditional in schools but it has now acquired great importance, due to the changing needs

of the educational system and its agents — students, families and teachers — who are

increasingly vulnerable after the economic, health, and population crisis of the 21st century.

The work of counselling has been extended and diversified to tutors, teaching staff,

professionals and external support teams, with new functions, in new interactive forms, as

well as to new contexts. All this new issue is analyzed by Monereo, Suñé & Fecho. The

aim is to formulate a new advisory model which is more appropriate to this new era, based

on the principle that advising is a specific and specialized way to dialogue. At the end of

this chapter, some approaches are offered for training academic advisors on the basis of the

dialogical perspective being proposed.

The COVID19 crisis has made it clear that ICT will be omnipresent in education in the

immediate future. Consequently, we will need teachers who are capable of dealing

professionally with distinct teaching scenarios: face to face, blended, and online. Thus

chapter 10, by Monereo, García-Morante & Amenduni, discusses the Hybrid Teacher

identity and the I-positions that he/she should develop as a curricular constructor, promoter

of autonomy, stimulator of significant learning, digital motivator, network team manager,

digital evaluator, apprentice of applications, and protector and defender of students. All of

them, whether new or modified positions, require training in the new high-humanitarian

technologies or “hi-hume” paradigm. An intuitive, creative, conscious, and contextualized

use of technologies is proposed, to really respond to the personal and social needs of a

humanity that is sensitive to the planet’s problems.

 36

In this hyperconnected society, educative processes are extended beyond the school and

institutional walls of formal education. Learning everytime and everywhere is the new

mantra of a society that must be permanently lifelong trained and maintained. Business and

nonprofit organizations require learning specialist for facing uncertainty and innovational

challenges. In Chapter 11, Valencia, Arrausi & Van Loon are focused on the Identity of a

Learning Specialist. The nowadays revival of alternative education comes to fulfil the

present learning necessities that formal programs alone cannot meet. Despite Learning

Specialist positions can widely vary according to the organization where they are working,

there are eight generalizable positions: strategist, educator/tutor, practitioner, dialogical

leader, speaker, researcher, mindful, and lifelong learner. All of these are concluded in a

core-position: I as Value Creator.

So far, we have referred to the need for future teachers, in their possible multiple

functions, to be conscious of their distinct I-positions and to develop new ones in

accordance with the demands of the times we are living in, thanks to different systems of

initial and ongoing training. These processes of change and innovation will necessarily

have to be validated by research, which must determine their impact, quality, effectiveness,

and efficiency. The last chapter, Chapter 12, written by Suñé, Monereo & Skakni, deals

precisely with the identity of the educational researcher as a key figure in guaranteeing that

changes go in the right direction, taking into account the quality of education. To achieve

this, the authors propose research based on an approach which is becoming more

widespread: Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). This is oriented on finding

responsible, viable, and sustainable solutions to the huge challenges that face education

today. This new way of conceiving educational research implies a new “social contract”
 37

between, citizens, governments, and businesses, and a different profile of researcher, with

an identity characterized by social commitment.

In his autobiography “The Education of Henry Adams” (1931), the famous historian

Henry B. Adams said that teachers affect eternity because we can never know where our

influence will stop. Without wanting to be that pretentious, we would like to think that this

book contributes by incorporating new voices into the minds of the educational agents that

are considered here. The objective is to open new and challenging dialogues which promote

new positions, and, ultimately, new professional identities which are better prepared to

teach and train future citizens. Citizens who must care for the life and survival of the world.

Figure 1.1. The global goal for sustainable development (United Nations, 2015)
 38

Figure 1.2. Re-positioning example.

Training Modalities Program Meaning of Instructional

approach training orientation

Acquire Pre- Closed To reproduce Direct

knowledge to constructive instruction

apply it Re- Open To conflict Learning by

constructive discovery

Co- Negotiated To negotiate Appropriation

constructive of meanings

Acquire Observation Closed To model Exchange of

competences to of practice experiences

solve problems Guided Adapted To practice Microteaching

Practices the theory

 39

Autonomous Open To transfer Learning by

practices control projects

/Portfolios

Acquire new Act out Semi-open To Dramatized

identity incidents experiment with situations

positions to positions

adjust to the Share Semi-open To share Report

classroom incidents representations exchange

Analyze Open To share Analysis

incidents assessment guidelines

Table 1.1. Dominant modalities in training.

The past Theme The most effective systems

Some students learn at Student inclusion All students learn at high

high levels levels

Routine cognitive skills Curriculum Learning to learn, complex

for lifetime jobs instruction and ways of thinking, ways of

assessment working

Taught to reach Teacher quality High level professional

established content knowledge workers

“Taylorist” and Work organisation Flat, collegial, differentiated

hierarchical and diverse careers

 40

Primarily to authorities Teacher evaluation Also, to peers and stakeholders

and accountability

Table 1.2. Measures to improve the quality of teaching (Schleicher, 2011)

The past Theme The most effective

systems

Teacher-oriented Meta-positional Teachers aware of their

approach vs. Learner- Teachers professional identity

oriented approach

Students as passive Students as partners Peer learning & partnership

recipients

Democracy as public Inner democracy Tolerant dialogues in our

participation mental society

Positive self-concept as Positive self-concept Openness to mistakes and a

a chain of success as making good mistakes critical attitude

Teacher as an expert in Teacher as a model Model attitudes of

the subject and its didactics resilience, perseverance and

social commitment

Teacher as an instrument Teacher as an Arrangements to promote

of government innovations innovator and inquirer educational courage and

ambition

Teachers as specialists in Teacher as a strategic Hybrid teaching (in-person,

an educational setting professional blended, online)

 41

Students as subject Students as citizens of Challenges for a

learners a global world sustainable world (UNESCO)

Educational community Active role of the Cooperative Educational

as support community Networks

Teaching, tutoring, Teaching, tutoring, Dialogical Education

advising, leading as forms advising, leading as

of management aspects of dialogue

Table 1.3. New measures to improve the quality of teaching, next decade.

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