Advocacy-oriented language teacher educator identity as ethical self-formation: A polyvocal exploration

Language teacher educators' identity is a significant contributor to pedagogical and professional choices they make in their work. Utilizing Foucault's notion of ethico-political self-formation as adapted by Clarke (2009), the researchers explored the identities of six advocacy-oriented language teacher educators (LTEs) working in the United States. In their polyvocal exploration, they focus on the ethical substance, authority sources, and self-practices that contribute to the formation of advocacy-oriented professional identities. Analysis revealed interactions between prior experiences, relationships, key theories, and self-practices of reflection as formative to identities as advocacy-oriented LTEs. The researchers discuss their findings in light of the relationship of identity formation to pedagogy and what collaborative self-reflection reveals about the formation of an advocacy-oriented LTE identity. The findings contribute to our developing understanding of advocacy within the context of language teaching and language teacher education.