Negotiating professional identities in higher education during redundancy and uncertainty : narratives of TEFL teachers in Northern Cyprus
Framed within the ânarrative turnâ in the human sciences, this thesis aims to explore the negotiation of professional identities in higher education during a time of uncertainty and redundancy. Drawing on narrative interviews with ten English language teachers at a higher education institution in Northern Cyprus, the lived experience of redundancy is explored from the perspectives of the redundant teachers, who had to leave their institution after redundancy, and the retained teachers, who remained at the institution after redundancy. Narratives constructed before and after redundancy shed light on the socially constructed and dynamic nature of negotiating professional identities and reveal that while individualsâ identities are shaped within their communities of practice, the institutional and group identities are also mutually reconstructed during this complex and continuous process. In this respect, this thesis is a story of collective becoming of a community of practice which experienced disintegration as a result of redundancy and uncertainty. In this thesis I argue that the experience of losing oneâs job can have a profound influence on both professional and personal identities and may result
Bilgen, Fatos Eren
L Education (General)
Negotiating professional identities in higher education during redundancy and uncertainty : narratives of TEFL teachers in Northern Cyprus. Framed within the ânarrative turnâ in the human sciences, this thesis aims to explore the negotiation of professional identities in higher education during a time of uncertainty and redundancy. Drawing on narrative interviews with ten English language teachers at a higher education institution in Northern Cyprus, the lived experience of redundancy is explored from the perspectives of the redundant teachers, who had to leave their institution after redundancy, and the retained teachers, who remained at the institution after redundancy. Narratives constructed before and after redundancy shed light on the socially constructed and dynamic nature of negotiating professional identities and reveal that while individualsâ identities are shaped within their communities of practice, the institutional and group identities are also mutually reconstructed during this complex and continuous process. In this respect, this thesis is a story of collective becoming of a community of practice which experienced disintegration as a result of redundancy and uncertainty. In this thesis I argue that the experience of losing oneâs job can have a profound influence on both professional and personal identities and may result
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