Chilean physics teacher educators' hybrid identities and border crossings as opportunities for agency within school and university

Abstract

This study examines the sense of agency developed through the hybrid identities of two Chilean educators working across a university physics department (as teacher educators), a secondary school (as part-time teachers), and a self-organised professional community to which they belong. A Freirean conceptualisation of agency together with border crossing and hybridity were used as theoretical frameworks. Data were collected through biographical interviews and follow-up conversations. A critical narrative approach was used for analysis. Findings suggest that the two physics educators encountered a hegemonic culture of physics education characterised by different hierarchies and tensions, such as the devaluation of pedagogy, lack of spaces for dialogue, and a punitive view of assessment.

Nonetheless, evidence showed that by crossing the borders of different communities, the participants problematise their boundaries. Through their hybrid identities position, the participants enact their agency to contest such boundaries bringing new practices particularly to the physics department, such as offering spaces for collaboration, allowing others to cross boundaries between the school and the university, and across science disciplines. It is argued that such identities can provide new learning opportunities for their students and their colleagues.

Moreover, evidence showed that the community to which participants belong acts as a space for cultivating hope, stressing the need for collective spaces for rethinking our practices. As such, their hybrid identity position offers a counter-narrative to the idea that university physics departments hold only a traditional and banking view of physics teaching and knowledge. Hence, this study offers evidence of how the two physics educators disrupt the boundaries that limit who the teacher educators are and the practices they engage with, highlighting the need for more schoolteachers contributing to initial teacher education. Such a new actor could offer more narratives for future physics teachers to negotiate their ideas about pedagogy and physics.