Research topic & abstract

Title
In Search of Self: Understanding Teachers’ Professional Learning in the Community of TATEAL
Abstract
This study is concerned with an emerging community in southern China identifiable as Teachers and Teacher Educators in Action Learning (TATEAL), which has been a proactive force in the support of teacher learning and professional development across institutional boundaries for about seven years. Taking a microethnographic perspective to the discourse of the annual activities conducted in the community of TATEAL, this study intends to explore: 1) how teacher learning in TATEAL is discursively constructed in terms of knowledge and belief, social relations, and identity; and 2) what are the enablements and constraints to teacher learning in TATEAL. Narrative and discourse (specifically Foucault’s genealogical approach) are both used to understand teachers’ lived experiences from individual, collaborative and cultural perspectives in TATEAL, as well as to investigate the relations between discourse, power and knowledge of teacher learning in such context.
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