The drawn selfie: diagnosis of university teachers’ self-understanding

Introduction: Teaching in higher education has become extremely topical and, at times, has been subject to several repeated media attacks from various sources tarnishing university reputations with utterances of substandard teaching quality, which has resulted in wave after wave of damaging critiques of the very institution we hold dear to our hearts. Purpose: This paper aims to further explore the professional self-understanding of those university teachers at the heart of what has become a highly marketised, consumer-driven higher education system in England. Methods: The methods adopted use a draw-talk and talk-draw combination, using participant drawings to generate a rich source of data, adding value to the spoken word of thirty-eight university teachers at two dual-intensive universities in England. This visual biographical narrative exposes the professional self-understanding using a polytextual and Jungian focal point analysis to underpin the university teacher’s sense of self. Results: The drawings were initially categorised into themes, with the drawing supporting this paper coming under the typification of the teaching self. The drawings unravelled the complexity of the visual language used to describe themselves and the contexts in which they operate regarding specific sites, environments, artefacts, disciplinary connections, and significant others involved in the teaching process. Conclusion: By emphasising the self-understanding of university teachers through visualisation, we can appreciate part of the complexity of the teacher as a person and understand and broadcast the everyday experiences of university teachers working lives and conditions. Furthermore, we can conclude that drawing as a vehicle enables identities to surface who we are and what we do as our roles evolve and shape our personal and professional selves.