Teachers as Private Tutors: Understanding Dual Professional Identities of Six Faculty Members from Uzbekistan University

Abstract

Due to socio-economic difficulties, many teachers in Uzbekistan combine their regular teaching activities with private supplementary tutoring (PST). Involvement in two professional activities has led to the emergence of teacher and tutor professional identities. It is assumed that the co-existence of dual identities has an influence on the professional activities of a tutor and/or of a teacher. Although a plethora of studies has focused on teacher identity and its effect on teachers’ professional activities and some on co-existence of teacher identity with other social identities, there is a gap in the academic literature with only a few studies on teacher-tutor identity and its impact on their professional activities. The present qualitative study has made an attempt to reveal the types of relationship between these two professional identities, to find out the reasons for the existing relationship and to explore how this relationship impacts their professional activities as a tutor and/or as a teacher. For these purposes, the research utilizes semi-structured interview questions with six university teaching staff members who are also private tutors. By applying a predetermined theoretical framework, an intrapersonal identity network approach, the study reveals the three most predominant types–power relationship, temporal and conflicting. These types of relationship found to have a negative impact on the respondents’ activities as private tutors.