PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

The overall aim of the study was to use the stories of four Mathematics teachers in a South African primary school to understand the influence of their current school context on their professional identity at a given point in time. This study forms part of a larger project that has been a narrative inquiry, undertaken as its research design to explore the identity construction of two experienced and two less experienced teachers. Data were collected by means of written accounts and individual interviews with these teachers. Although the participants' stories revealed previous personal and professional experiences as children, students and teachers in other school contexts, the positive impact of the current school context on their professional identity emerged as a central theme. The major finding of this investigation speaks of the dominance of the school context that seems to be a powerful force in the construction and reconstruction of teachers' professional identities.