What was that all about? Transforming identities of schoolteachers as academics: a critical study of transition and meaning making.

This international research project explores the perceptions of university appointees transitioning from professional practice to academia. The experience of teacher educators as they move from teaching in schools to the university is discussed. By probing deeply aspects of the transition that emerged as critical to the negotiation of an academic identity we uncover differences in professional and academic backgrounds, experiences, personalities, supporting and systemic structures, values and politics yet very similar perceptions of the need to interrupt the traditional processes of academic transitions. Through auto-ethnography and narrative we uncover ways that academics can reflect, poke holes in false identities thrust upon them, acknowledge the roles of their peers in their developing academic identity and work outward towards those spaces that make them human. But the narratives also illuminate despair and ontological insecurity as participants reflect on how they are positioned as 'deficit' academics and the confusing status of a doctorate.