Identity and Commitment to the Teacher Role

S ociologists in the United States show an increasing interest in methods of teaching, curricular innovations, and resources for teaching. These concerns will be of little consequence, however, if the individual instructor lacks a commitment to the teaching role. Drawing upon the framework of symbolic interactionism, we highlight several elements of commitment with the expectation that this understanding may in turn be used to encourage a greater commitment to the role of teacher. The concept of commitment is amenable to analysis with a symbolic interactionist framework. Embedded within interactionism are three foci: Human beings act toward things on the basis of subjective meanings; the meanings of such things are derived from social interaction; and these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process in coping with objects (Blumer, 1969: 2).