ABSTRACT
Professional identity fashions teachers’ expectations of themselves, what they perceive to be the expectations and perceptions of others from inside and outside the school, and their efficacy and agency, the strength of their beliefs that they can, or cannot, succeed in their work with pupils. In considering the role of professional identities in teachers’ work, it is important to acknowledge that to teach to one’s best will require an investment of the personal as well as the professional self. Whether teachers have a stable or unstable, positive or negative sense of professional identity may also be closely related not only to the ways they may respond to what they perceive to be positive and negative external influences, but also the strength of their inner motivations to teach. H. Sockett’s concern was with the moral rights and duties of a professional role and he defined four dimensions: community; knowledge or expertise; accountability; and ideals.
