Language teacher identity is an emerging subject of interest in research on language
teacher education and teacher development. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to
the ways in which teacher identity is theorized. The present article explores ways of
theorizing language teacher identity by presenting three data-based studies of teacher
identity and juxtaposing the three different theoretical frameworks that they use: Tajfel's
(1978) social identity theory, Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory of situated learning, and …

This paper explores the published article that discusses theorizing language teacher
identity. The article analyzes ways of theorizing language teacher identity by showing three
date-based studies of teacher identity. The first study, by Johnson (2005), uses the social
identity theory of Hogg and Abram (1998) based on the work of Tajfel (1978) to explore the
language teacher identity of a new teacher–a nonnative English speaking graduate student
in an MA TESOL program. The second study, by Varghese (2005), employs Lave and …