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Identity and place-based teacher identities: what connects across diverse personal and professional landscapes?

ABSTRACT Given that identity continually evolves within socio-cultural contexts of meaning, is there any perceived connectedness between place-based identity and the development of teacher identity? How might shifting personal and professional stories of experience influence teachers’ sense of place, whereby place is conceptualized through interconnected ways of living and working in time and place with others in early childhood contexts? In this ongoing Sydney-based project, six teachers working in prior-to-school (long day care) settings critically reflected on and represented their identity journeys across the professional experience. Using a new place-based framework for exploring identity development, teachers traced their encounters with the place(s), with multi-modal forms of representation and reflection supporting teachers’ re-examination of significant biography events and social-cultural locatedness. Using aesthetic ways of thinking and representing, this article provides insight into the place-based nature of early childhood teachers’ lives and work, illustrating the interwoven nature of teacher identity often formed “out of view”. Challenges associated with shifting personal and professional terrains are clarified, opening possibilities for renewal of pedagogies and transformation of identity understandings.