This dissertation explores how professional identity is experienced by teachers in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) instruction. In particular, it addresses professional identity in relation to two immediate contexts of teacher activity, i.e. that of the classroom and that of the collegial community. In addition to exploring how these two sides of the professional self give rise to a broader understanding of professional identity, this dissertation also explores aspects of professional agency and the negotiation of emotions in their work. The dissertation is founded on fourteen interviews with Finnish kindergarten and primary education teachers doing CLIL. The data were thematically analyzed in relation to exercising teacher agency and negotiating teacher identity at work.
The dissertation first suggests that when CLIL teachers feel agentic at work, they feel they can work in accordance with how they perceive their professional identity and have strengthened motivation behind their actions in continuing CLIL. However, despite the overall positive attitude the participants had toward CLIL, constraints did exist in their day-to-day practice. In addition to managing present resources and constraints, agency is linked to teachers’ negotiation of their professional self as educational professionals and colleagues. This dissertation further suggests that individual and social elements in identity negotiation are interconnected under examination of smaller time frames and that the teacher is the result of both. While not aiming at arguing for the supremacy of individual over social aspects or vice versa, this dissertation does support the central role of the individual in identity negotiation, as it agentically interprets sociocultural aspects in lived contexts and selectively responds to the various social affordances in the professional environment. Nonetheless, it is in such social contexts that spaces can be created, in order to facilitate identity negotiation, professional initiative and transformation of community practices. In relation to emotions, this dissertation argues that the process of (re)defining and shaping one’s professional identity is an emotional one. Holding potential for individual as well as professional learning, they become part of professional trajectories and a resource for CLIL teachers. The dissertation concludes with practical and theoretical implications for CLIL teachers’ professional identity, agency and emotions.