(Self) Positions and voices on co-education: constructing teacher identities in the implementation equality programmes

Resumen

The notions of I-positions and voices are proposed as analytical tools for studying how a group of teachers, specialists in co-education, use their narratives to construct and negotiate possible professional identities. More specifically, we analyse how this process develops in a focus-group organised to discuss the educational changes elicited by the implementation of gender equality programmes. In this study we conceive identity as a continuous and changing narrative in which the self is also construed as a multiple, changing and constantly negotiated reality where individuals establish who they are in relation with others and with the contexts they participate in. Some excerpts from a focus-group of professionals in education discussing about the consequences of the application of a gender equality programme promoted by the regional government are analysed. From this analysis, the interplay of the different positions adopted by the participants in the debate, as well as the voices that articulated these positions are examined. We conclude that the professional identities of our experts in co-education are being constructed in a specific cultural and ideological context.