Reenvisioning teacher identity through hybrid professionalism: towards equity in diverse educational fields

Nashid Nigar; Minh Hue Nguyen; Rachael Dwyer; Steven Kolber; Ruth Fielding; Bella Illesca; Alex Ciaffaglione; Alex Kostogriz

doi:10.1080/13540602.2026.2681162

Back

Reenvisioning teacher identity through hybrid professionalism: towards equity in diverse educational fields

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Reenvisioning teacher identity through hybrid professionalism: towards equity in diverse educational fields

Nashid Nigar, Minh Hue Nguyen, Rachael Dwyer, Steven Kolber, Ruth Fielding, Bella Illesca, Alex Ciaffaglione and Alex Kostogriz

Teachers and Teaching, Vol.Advanced access

31-May-2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2026.2681162

Files and links (1)

pdf

Reenvisioning teacher identity through hybrid professionalism towards equity in diverse educational fields1.36 MBDownload View

Published Version (Advanced Access) Open Access CC BY V4.0

Abstract

hybrid professional becoming

teacher identity

intersectionality

non-native English-speaking teachers

minority teacher

professional development

In Australian education, increasingly shaped by superdiverse, multicultural, multilingual, and performance-driven conditions, dominant models of teacher professionalism continue to marginalise teachers from culturally, linguistically, racially, gendered, and socially diverse backgrounds. This paper examines how teachers from minoritised groups negotiate professional identity within institutional discourses that inadequately reflect their lived experiences. Drawing on a long-term study informed by hermeneutic phenomenology and narrative inquiry, the paper advances the concept of Hybrid Professional Becoming (HPB) as a processual, relational, and intersectional framework for understanding teacher identity formation. Using qualitative case studies, the study explores how race, language, culture, gender, sexuality, migration history, disability, rurality, and socio-economic positioning shape professional becoming among migrant non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), culturally and linguistically/racially diverse (CLRD/CALRD) teachers, LGBTQIA+ educators, Indigenous teachers, immigrant teachers, and other marginalised cohorts. The findings show that these educators resist performative and neoliberal constructions of professionalism by enacting hybrid practices that foster agency, inclusion, solidarity, and transformative learning environments. HPB positions teacher identity as fluid, affective, and continually negotiated, offering an open-ended equity-oriented framework for teacher education, policy, and professional development in culturally layered educational contexts.

Details

Title: Reenvisioning teacher identity through hybrid professionalism: towards equity in diverse educational fields
Authors: Nashid Nigar (Corresponding Author) - Monash University
Minh Hue Nguyen - Monash University
Rachael Dwyer - University of the Sunshine Coast
Steven Kolber - Victoria University
Ruth Fielding - Monash University
Bella Illesca - The University of Melbourne
Alex Ciaffaglione - RMIT University
Alex Kostogriz - Monash University
Publication details: Teachers and Teaching, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2026.2681162
ISSN: 1470-1278
Copyright note: © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Data Availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Organisation Unit: School of Education and Tertiary Access
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991241470302621
Output Type: Journal article

Metrics

1 Record Views