Getting better teachers in the bush

This chapter explores concepts of identity, difference and disadvantage through a self-study that focuses on preparing teachers to teach for diversity. I consider influences of my rural, working class background in a homogeneous setting as it shapes my professional identity as a teacher educator. I begin the self-study by reflecting on my early career and work as a language and literacy teacher educator at a regional university where I began to carefully consider the discursive resources that students in regional and rural settings bring to teacher education a decade ago. A decade on, in a different but somewhat similar university, I am still grappling with ways of raising awareness of diversity and discussing issues of race, social class, gender and ability and implications for teaching and learning. In this chapter I use the process of self-study to examine my own practice as a teacher educator using the implications from my doctoral studies as a focus.