A journey of self-discovery into educator identity in work-related education

Current studies in work-related education, particularly in workplace learning and tertiary education, focus on the social and professional aspects of an educator’s identity. Drawing on the author’s doctoral research and written in the first person, this paper addresses an understudied aspect, which is the educational aspect of the educator’s identity. Using autoethnography as a methodological lens, the narrative reveals educational identity as an important trigger of continuous self-improvement in the professional and social dimensions of the author’s self-perceived identity, and thus brings a new contribution to understanding educator identity from the educational perspective. The qualitative research was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 revealed how the author’s undertaking of further studies in Australia triggered changes from self-doubt to self-esteem in their professional and social self-perceptions while working in Australia. Phase 2 revealed how these changes eventually influenced the author’s teaching practice upon her return to Mauritius after her Australian journey. The author’s teaching practice was characterised by an endeavour to facilitate learning while embracing inclusiveness and balancing participation with reflection. Finally, this study calls for future research with a broader range of educators to gauge how influential is educational identity on professional and social identity in culturally diverse work-related education.