Professional Identity
What professional identity is
A more or less conscious understanding of what good and professional teaching and learning look like (Huggen, 2005).
How it develops
- Through participation in professional communities (Wenger, 1998)
- In cooperation with others on concrete tasks
- Through language and communication (Vygotsky, 1978)
- When theoretical perspectives and the habit of reflection are experienced as normal teaching activities
Two kinds of reflection in teacher development
| Practice-oriented (practice as training) | Professional (practice as education) |
|---|---|
| Based on experience and what works | Critical and self-reflective |
| Theory is not important | Theory is an important tool |
| Produces technicians | Produces authoritative independent teachers |
Why professional reflection matters
Practice-oriented reflection alone produces teachers who can perform but cannot grow beyond their early formation. Professional reflection produces teachers who can keep developing across a career.
A teacher with strong skills and weak professional identity tends to drift. They can perform the daily work, but they have no clear sense of what kind of teacher they are becoming. A teacher with a developed professional identity has a centre. The skills serve the identity, not the other way around.
Professional identity is not the same as personality. It is the more or less conscious understanding of what good and professional teaching and learning look like, and how the teacher fits into that picture.
What professional identity is
Huggen (2005) defined professional identity as a more or less conscious apprehension of what constitutes good and professional teaching and learning. Three things are worth noting in this definition.
It is conscious to varying degrees
Some teachers have a highly conscious sense of what good teaching is and where they stand within it. Others operate with a much vaguer sense. Both have a professional identity. The difference is the level of awareness.
A teacher who can articulate their identity clearly tends to make more deliberate professional choices than one who cannot.
It is about good and professional teaching
Professional identity is normative. It includes what the teacher considers good teaching to be. Two teachers can have very different ideas about what good teaching looks like, and these ideas shape what they value, what they aim at, and what they are willing to compromise on.
It includes both teaching and learning
Identity is not only about how the teacher sees themselves. It is also about how they see student learning. The two go together. A teacher whose view of learning emphasises memorisation has a different professional identity from one whose view emphasises understanding.
How professional identity develops
Professional identity develops through participation in professional communities, in cooperation with others, on concrete tasks. This phrase, drawn from Wenger (1998), captures something important.
Identity does not form alone in a private mind. It forms in interaction with other professionals, on real work, over time.
Through participation in professional communities
A community of practice is a group of people who share a craft and learn from each other. For teachers, this might be the staff of a school, a department, a local network, or a professional association.
Participation in such a community shapes the teacher. Through observation, conversation, shared work, and feedback, the teacher absorbs what counts as good practice in their community and gradually finds their own place within it.
A teacher who participates only minimally in their community develops a thinner professional identity than one who participates fully.
Through cooperation on concrete tasks
Identity does not develop through abstract discussion alone. It develops through working together on real tasks: planning lessons, marking, organising events, dealing with difficult situations. The concrete work is where identity gets tested and refined.
This is why a teacher who collaborates regularly with colleagues develops differently from one who works in isolation. Collaboration is not a nice extra; it is part of how identity forms.
Through language and communication
Vygotsky (1978) argued that knowledge and skills are transmitted through language and communication. Professional identity is no exception. The vocabulary the teacher uses to talk about their work shapes how they understand their work.
A teacher who learns to use professional language fluently, in conversation with other professionals, develops a different identity from one who never engages with that language.
Through theory and reflection as normal teaching activities
For professional identity to develop fully, theoretical perspectives and the habit of reflection must be experienced by the teacher as normal teaching activities, not as something extra added on for training purposes.
When theory and reflection are part of the daily texture of teaching, the teacher’s identity includes being someone who thinks about teaching. When theory and reflection are kept separate from daily teaching, the teacher’s identity is narrower and shallower.
Two kinds of reflection in teacher development
How a teacher reflects shapes the kind of professional identity they develop. Two kinds of reflection are common, and they produce different teachers.
Practice-oriented reflection (practice as training)
This kind of reflection is based on experience and what works. The teacher reflects on what they did and adjusts based on results. Theory is not important. The reflection stays close to the immediate situation.
Practice-oriented reflection produces teachers who can perform competently in familiar situations. It does not produce teachers who can step back from their own practice and ask deeper questions.
This kind of reflection treats teaching as a craft to be picked up by doing it. The view is sometimes called “practice as training”: the teacher learns by being trained in what works.
Professional reflection (practice as education)
The second kind is critical and self-reflective. Theory is an important tool, used to interpret experience and to question assumptions. The reflection moves beyond what works in this immediate situation into why and what could be different.
Professional reflection produces teachers who can keep developing across a career. They can re-examine their own practice, integrate new ideas, and adapt to changing conditions.
This kind of reflection treats teaching as something to be educated for, not just trained in. The view is sometimes called “practice as education.”
Why professional reflection matters
Professional reflection is necessary to educate authoritative independent teachers. Without it, teachers can perform but cannot grow beyond the parameters of their early formation. They become competent technicians of a particular method.
Reflection in advance is central to intellectual and professional growth. Reflection mostly oriented to instrumental, practice-focused issues, and to what students could have done better, stays at the technical level. It does not engage with the deeper questions that develop a teacher into a thoughtful, independent professional.
A teacher who reflects only in the practice-oriented mode reaches a ceiling on their professional identity. They identify as someone who knows what works in their classroom. A teacher who reflects in the professional mode keeps developing. Their identity becomes one of someone who is always learning.
Practice-oriented reflection focuses on experience and what works without engaging theory. Professional reflection is critical and self-reflective, using theory as an important tool.
Practice-oriented reflection (practice as training) produces competent technicians who can perform within familiar parameters. Professional reflection (practice as education) produces authoritative independent teachers who can keep developing across a career. Both have their place, but only the second supports long-term growth.
Why this distinction matters in early career
A teacher in their first years is often pushed toward practice-oriented reflection. The pressure is real: there is so much to learn about classroom routines, lesson preparation, behaviour management, and assessment that anything beyond “what works” feels like a luxury.
This is understandable. It is also a trap if it stays the only mode of reflection.
The teacher who stays only in practice-oriented mode for their first five years sets up patterns that are then hard to break. The professional identity that forms is one of a competent doer, not a critical thinker. Moving from this identity into a more reflective one later is harder than building a reflective identity from the start.
A practical solution is to make some space for professional reflection from the beginning, even if most reflection is practice-oriented. A monthly entry that engages with theory. A conversation each term with a more experienced colleague about not just what works but why. A book on educational philosophy read once a year.
These small practices, sustained over time, build the foundation for a professional identity that can keep growing. Without them, the identity that forms is harder to develop later.