Exploring the identity negotiation of early career mathematics teachers: A pilot study

Becoming a mathematics teacher is a period of intense identity negotiation. This study aims to understand how secondary mathematics teachers negotiate their identities during their first two years of teaching by exploring the internal forces that shape their understanding of being a mathematics teacher while navigating the social and cultural conditions of schools. Three early career teachers participated in a pilot study, which employed exploratory interviews supplemented with written personal reflections, and the collection of artefacts. In this paper I will look at the design of these data collection methods, and their potential to help develop a narrative inquiry. Such methods provide opportunities to collect extended narratives which explore teachers’ histories, beliefs about mathematics, and the context in which they work