The ‘ pibidian ’ identity : a critical discourse analysis of the ‘ pibidian ’ social actor in teacher education programs

This paper focuses on an analysis of the pibidian identity as represented by a new teacher as she leaves the program. Thus, it aimed at discussing the fostering of pibidian identity within teacher education programs in Brazil. It is based on studies of the poststructuralist view of identity (Gee, 2001; Silva, 2004; Block, 2007; Woodward, 2011). Data used are extracted from a transcription of a local seminar. The data are analyzed through Critical Discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) and the theory of representation of social actors (Van Leuween, 2008). The results show the pibidian identity is constructed through ‘differentiation’ and ‘normalization’ and developed as an ‘affinity identity’. Thus, it also constructs a ‘group identity’ and crafts ‘agential’ ways of positioning.


Introduction
This study is part of a two-year investigation of teacher identities through the Brazilian 'Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação a Docência' (Institutional Program of Teaching Initiation) (henceforth PIBID).Aiming at overcoming the well-known contradictions of teacher education (gap between theory and practice, for example), Brazil developed the 'National Policy for Teacher Education'.The main tenet of the policy is to support programs that place central emphasis on teacher education and the valorization of teachers for improving education in Brazil.PIBID is one of these programs designed to enhance teacher education and teaching in public schools by offering scholarships to teachers.The program also aims at promoting innovative teaching practices at public schools.
Several studies have demonstrated the impact of PIBID on teacher education programs (Justina, Ribeiro, & Castela, 2013;Mateus, El Kadri, & Silva, 2013;Jordão et al., 2013;El Kadri, 2014).The El Kadris unanimously support the idea that PIBID (a) collaborates with overcoming gaps in teacher education programs, mainly the gap between theory and practice and the gap between university and school and (b) represents a possibility for constructing novice teachers' identification with the school, contributing to the university-school relationship and creating opportunities for professional development (Correa & Portela, 2012).During a teaching seminar in which the three novice teachers of each teacher educator could present their experiences related to the practicum, Aline, a new teacher, participant of PIBID, volunteered herself.When discussing her experience, she begins to call herself a pibidiana and leaves the program with this self-representation.Such emphasis on being called as a pibidiana made me wonder what it meant for teachers' identities.
Thus, this paper focuses on an analysis of the pibidian identity.Therefore, it aimed at discussing the fostering of pibidian identity within teacher education programs in Brazil.The fragment analyzed by critical discourse analysis lenses with the intent to incorporate a critical view on the understanding of how the pibidian identity is constructed and what other possible meanings it might have in the context of teacher education programs in Brazil.

Discourse and Representation from CDA perspective
For Fairclough (2003), " […] discourse figures alongside bodily behavior in constituting particular ways of being, particular social or personal identities" (Fairclough, 2003, p. 26).That is, discourse also features as identification, or ways of being.Ways of being refer to the kind of identity construction that people enact as they use language (Rogers, 2011).This is relevant for this perspective and for this study because […] particular representations (discourses) may be enacted in particular ways of acting and relating (genres) and inculcated in particular ways of Identifying (styles) (Fairclough, 2003, p. 29).
Therefore, " […] the way individuals represent social actors in the discourse is also a crucial factor not only for the idea of 'belonging' but also for 'identity" (Bauman, 2005, p. 17).It is in this sense that Hall (2005) sees identities as a set of cultural representation constructed in specific situations; a way of meaning-making which influences and organizes not only our actions but the conceptions we have about ourselves.Through this, the affirmation of a specific identity means at the same time, a claim for difference and translates the desire of different social groups, situated asymmetrically, to have guaranteed privileged access to social resources.
Because it is fundamentally through representation that we construct the identity of the 'other', and, at the same time, our own identity, 'representations' may be legitimized in ways of social action and embedded in social agent 'identities' (Fairclough, 2003), as they act symbolically to classify the world and our relations within it (Hall, 2005).
Discourses and representation, in essence, construct the 'place' from where individuals might be positioned and from where they can speak.It is through representations that individual and collective identities are established (Woodward, 2011).However, identities are 'contested'and individuals are constrained not only to the possibilities that culture offers but also by social relations.Seeing that representations of social actors consists of, in one way, observing social identities (Silva, 2004;Fairclough, 2001;Woodward, 2011), representations are perhaps indicative of the types of teacher identities crafted in each environment.
Thus, for Fairclough (2001), discourses are also ways of representing.Since particular aspects of the world are represented in different ways, looking towards discursive representation allows for an understanding of how different discourses understand the world in differing ways.In this sense, […] representation is clearly a discoursal matter, and we can distinguish different discourses, which may represent the same area of the world from different perspectives or positions (Fairclough, 2003, p. 26).
For Rogers (2011), ways of representing (discourse) refer to the cluster of meanings that give rise to macro-narratives or cultural models.Discourse as representation, therefore, refers to "[…] semiotic ways of constructing aspects of the world (physical, social or mental), which can generally be identified with different positions or perspectives of different groups of social actors" (Fairclough, 2009, p. 164).In other words, representations of the social life are inherently positioned -that is, social actors in different positions see and represent it in different ways and through varying discourses (Fairclough, 2001).
With this in mind, I will turn to a discussion on the Identity as difference.(2001) supports the view that contemporary society is marked by foregrounded discursive processes and has been aware that discursive processes are a result of a number of trends that are associated with further stresses on interpretive (semiotic) processes, and the ascending need for recognition through discourse and dialogue.Considering this, Gee (2001) argues that people can no longer solely rely on traditional El Kadriity and institutions to underwrite their identity albeit the identity they create (or recruit) still has to be recognized by others (Flum & Kaplan, 2012).It is in this process that people engage in 'making sense of' or in an interpretative effort, and construct ae, rather than expect to derive their identity directly from 'official' institutions (Gee, 2001;Flum & Kaplannd sustain identities through discourse and dialogu, 2012).

Gee
The notion of identity is also particularly relevant here because the concept has become intrinsically related to a person's ways of acting and interacting.It is important to recognize that placing focus on the "contextually specific ways in which people act out and recognize identities allows a more dynamic approach than the sometimes overly general and static trio of race, class, and gender" (Gee, 2001, s/p).This has also brought to light how socio-historical-cultural perspectives of learning have also used identity as an important analytic tool for understanding schools and society (Gee, 2001), mainly related to teachers' trajectories during participation in social practices constitutive of the profession.This is significant because […] any human being acts and interacts in a given context, others recognize that person as acting and interacting as a certain 'kind of person' or even as several different 'kinds' at once (Gee, 2001, p. 99) attributing identities to these teachers that may be either accepted or contested.Gee (2001) understands identity as being recognized as a certain 'kind of person', in a given context -which means all people have multiple identities connected not to their 'internal states' but to their performances in society.Being a certain kind of person, as highlighted by Gee (2001), is tied to 'performance' in society, which I addressed here by using the term participation: it is through participation and subsequently engagement in the social practices one becomes a certain kind of person.
Thus, the El Kadri (2014) argues in favor of a: perspective for identity characterized by 'recognition'.From this perspective, Gee (2001) proposes an interesting approach for the analysis of identities which is built around four perspectives concerning what it means to be recognized as a 'certain kind of person': Nature identity (N-identity), Institution identity (Iidentity), Discourse identity (D-identity) and Affinityidentity (A-identity).The last three are significant to this investigation.The Table 1, reproduced from Gee (2001), summarizes the four perspectives presented thus far.
Because Gee (1996) recognizes Discourse as being composed of ways of talking, listening, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and using tools and objects, in particular settings at specific times, it also displays and recognizes a particular social identity.Reeves (2009) also argues that the parameters of identity positions (whether the position is claimed or assigned) define what is expected of and socially possible for an actor.This view maintains the idea that identity is seen as difference (Silva, 2004).Silva (2004) reinforces that identity and difference are in an intrinsic relationship of interdependence; they are inseparable, mutually determined and constitute each other: when we say we 'are' something, it is because we are saying we are not anything else.Identity and difference, according to the El Kadri (2014), also share an important feature: they are the result of a linguistic creation, which means they have to be actively produced.Identity as difference is produced, crafted and created in the social world and in the context of cultural and social relations through language (Silva, 2004;Woodward, 2011).In other words, identity as difference only makes sense within a chain of meaning comprised by other identities; they are outcomes of a process of symbolic and discursive production.Woodward (2011) agrees with this perspective, stressing that identity is indeed sustained by exclusion.Such demarcation -which might be realized linguistically by the use of pronouns, for example -means to reinforce and reaffirm power relations since they are indicators of subjectpositions strongly embedded in power relations.In this sense, Silva (2004) believes 'classification' is also a way to divide the world and groups and classes, which are not symmetrical grouping, because it also means to prioritize: who has the privilege of classifying also has the power to attribute different values to the classified groups.Identity is thus related to the way society produces and uses such classification.Based on Derrida, Silva (2004) affirms that the most important form of classification is the binary opposition, because they refrain from simply dividing the world into two symmetrical groups because one of the groups -generally the 'we' group -is always privileged.Such demarcation of 1 The 'institutional perspective', according to Gee (2001), is generally associated with a position, that is, it is not something given by nature.It is, rather, accomplished by the person (such as being a teacher).For Gee (2001), the power that determines it as a set of El Kadriities, or, the source of this power, is an institution.The 'I -Identity' might be seen, according to the El Kadri (2014), as a 'calling' or an 'imposition'.

2
The discursive identity means someone is who he/she is, not something he/she is born with.Nor are they something an institution creates and upholds rather, individuals are the source of this power.Although it might be an individual trait (such as being charismatic, for example), it is not to say that it is something one can achieve alone.According to the El Kadri (2014), the source of this trait, that is, the "[…] power" that determines it, is the discourse or dialogue of other people.What Gee wishes to transmit is that "people can construct and sustain identities through discourse and dialogue (D-Identities) without the overt sanction and support of 'official' institutions that come, in some sense, to 'own'those identities" (Gee, 2001, p. 103).

3
The source of the power that determines what Gee (2001) calls the Affinity perspective (or A-identities), however, is a set of distinctive practices that is nether the nature of an institution, nor other people's discourse and dialogue alone, but an "affinity group."This group shares allegiance to, access to, and participation in specific practices that provide each of the group's members the requisite experiences.Therefore, the process through which this power works, for the El Kadri (2014), is participation or sharing.The focus on this kind of identity is with distinctive social practices that create and sustain group affiliations, rather than on institutions or discourse/dialogue directly.
Along similar lines, Woodward (2011) argues that to affirm the primacy of one identity, it seems necessary to not only place it in opposition to another undetermined identity but to also claim for an identity that seems 'real', 'authentic', 'pure'or simply better than the other.Therefore, for Silva (2004), it is paramount to question the binarisms of our society in order to question identity and difference as power relations.However, Block (2007, p. 17)

reminds us that
[…] much observed activity described by research as 'identity work' is about individuals seeking to align and make as consistent as possible what they 'give' and 'give off', in short, to control the reception of the subject positions they choose to adopt.
At the same time, identities are created in the social relations, individuals have the power to accept or reject it.The key issue here is the recognition that identity is both generated from subject positions as well as subject positionings that are imposed on individuals by others (Block, 2007).
The perspective that identities as difference are featured by a 'classification' process appears an important feature because 'identities rely on difference' (Woodward, 2011).This view diverts the concept away from this emphasis on identity as description, that is, from what it 'is' towards the idea of 'becoming' (Silva, 2004;Hall, 2005;Woodward, 2011).In my view, this concept aligns with our understanding that it is through 'participation' and 'experience' that we become who we are because "[…] every experience enacted and undergone modifies the one who acts" (Dewey, 2008, p. 18).Besides, another important element of the aspect of performativity in identity brought by Silva (2004) is that the productive efficacy of the performative discourse connected to identity depends on its incessant repetition.That is, it is through repetition or even through the possibility of repetition that a linguistic act is strengthened in the process of identity.
As a result, it is apparent that identity is not a pre-existing entity, rather it is created and re-created constantly; it is linked with the attribution of meaning in the social world and to dispute surrounding this attribution.In this sense, one can deny, accept, contribute or reinforce the social attribution given to him/her in a specific context.This notion is connected to the concept of 'investment'.According to Woodward (2011), the process of accepting or reinforcing an identity is also relevant for any discussion on identity because there are feelings involved in the process of constructing identities.The concept of 'investment' allows us, according to the El Kadri (2014), to explain the reasons for which we accept and reinforce a particular identity.This concept, however, adds to what the classificatory systems (Silva, 2004;Hall, 2005) cannot explain: the personal investment in identities.
Woodward (2011) also adds that identity is indeed featured by difference, but what is most important is the fact that some differences are more important to others in specific places and at specific times.The emergence of different identities is historical; it is placed in a specific time.She emphasizes that identities in conflict are set within social, political and economic changes.She attributes historical time in the contemporary world to a time in which there are new forms of positioning because of the collapse of certainties.

Context
As part of a group of PIBID in a public school In Paraná, 12 new teachers were assigned to the supervision by the first El Kadri (2014) to learn to teach by teaching in a public school in Londrina, Brazil.In this article, I exemplify our findings by drawing on the data involving one new teacher in particular, Aline.She was part of the cohort of new teachers seeking certification to teach English at the State University of Londrina, Brazil, under my supervision.Aline comes from a teacher family and has been teaching English in private schools for ten years.She has tried to pursue her certification twice before this experience and has dropped both teaching education programs, according to her, due because of 'the lack of meaning' had for her.
During the two-years of working in the project, I recorded all forms of engagement in teachinglearning tasks on the part of the PIBID (18 new teachers during the two-year program).All the encounters were recorded and fully transcribed (El Kadri, 2014).The new teachers' written assignments were assembled into portfolios that entered the database.The data sources also include talks in seminars, reports, transcribed cogenerative dialoguing session, and recordings of individual supervision sessions.The database now consists of more than 8,000 pages of transcripts produced over the two years.Our reflection and other analysis of Aline's trajectory can be seen in El Kadri and Roth (2013) andEl Kadri (2014).In this paper, however, my analysis is based on one of these episodes in which Aline self-represents herself as being a pibidiana.This episode is an excerpt of a transcription of a local seminar and it is analyzed through the Representation of social actors 4 (Fairclough, 2003;Van Leuween, 2008) and the transitivity systems 5 (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).Both category of analysis is chosen because they allow us to notice how novice teachers represent themselves and others and what ways of being are constructed through such representations.In the next section, I use such categories to analyze the pibidian discourse.
Creating the pibidian discourse: 'I am a pibidiana' The fragment below is an excerpt of a very articulated talk in a local seminar.As mentioned in the introduction, during this teaching seminar in which the three novice teachers of each teacher educator could present their experiences related to the practicum, Aline, a new teacher, volunteered herself.When discussing her experience, she begins to call herself a pibidiana and leaves the program with the following discourse and representation: I can say that when I got myself into PIBID [Institutional program of teaching initiation] […] I didn't know at first that it was going to be so demanding.But really, I didn't know that it was going to re-frame my profession so much.I have been teaching since I was 17.It has been 10 years.But PIBID has shown me another reality and PIBID has provided me with the opportunity to create for myself a new meaning of my profession.And I think that through it we were able to find these successful practices in public school that I want to share with you today.[…] I am a pibidiana, and I think it is so awesome.I like to say it (Aline, novice teacher).
What we can notice is that in the fragment, three participants are identified and linguistically materialized in her text: herself (by using the pronouns 'I' and 'me'), PIBID and the group of teachers with whom she has been working (by using the pronoun 'we').
The way Aline positions herself here seems to be represented as involved not only in actions (like I have been describing so far) but also in 'reactions': she reports she 'wants' to share' and 'likes' to say it', representing herself as someone who is the 'senser' of this 'affective mental process' (realized by the process combining perfective nonfinite clauses with 4 The 'representation of social actors', according to Fairlclough (2003) involves a number of choices.For example, it is important to know if (a) social actors are included or excluded, (b) they are realized as a pronoun or as a noun, (c) they are realized as a Participant in the clause (e.g.actor, affected), or if (d) they are the Actors in processes or the affects or beneficiaries of the processes, for example.And it is precisely all these distinctions available in the theory that matter.

5
The 'transitivity systems' are significant categories for analyzing representation and identity, that is, for analyzing how social actors position themselves and others in discourse because it generally refers to how meaning is represented in the clause.'Transitivity' is part of the ideational function of language and is a fundamental and powerful semantic concept thus making it an essential tool in the analysis of representation (Matu, 2008).
'to').The way Aline represents herself here, from a socio-historical-cultural perspective, characterizes an exhibition of 'power to act', that is, a kind of main and agential role in teaching which portrays […] an active participation of the subjects in the search for alternatives to the contradictions in their context and at the same time, act in a conscious and responsible way aiming at influencing social transformation (Mateus & El Kadri, 2012, p. 118).
However, she also positions herself as a beneficiary of the processes whose agent is PIBID.This is when she starts to represent her meanings of PIBID through the noun PIBID or by using the pronoun 'it'.In Aline's utterance, PIBID is represented as an 'activated' social actor with a causative role, that is, it is the agent of transformation.
More precisely, PIBID is 'personalized', that is, it is depicted by representational choices that personalize social actors and represent them as human beings.This meaning includes the characteristic, 'human' (Van Leuween, 2008), and therefore represents a human being with included characteristics or actions that only would be possible to humans.The program is therefore, represented through the linguistic realization of its proper name (PIBID).Being the social actor and having personalized roles, performing actions that would only be possible to humans, PIBID 'shows, provides, reframes'.In this fragment, Aline's positioning differs from the first sentence: as she demarcates PIBID as the agent of the actions, she puts herself in the position of being 'passivated' by such action (PIBID has shown 'me' and has provided 'me') because she is represented as "[…] undergoing the activity or being at the receiving of it" (Van Leeuwen, 1993, p. 33), assuming the role of 'beneficiary' in the action.Aline represents PIBIDa program that by the very fact of being a program is not able to 'do' or 'perform things' -as being the agent of several actions: "PIBID has shown me another reality.[…]PIBID has provided me with the opportunity.[…] it was going to re-frame my profession" (Aline, novice teacher).The verbs chosen to represent PIBID are 'material action process' in the 'transactive' mode.Precisely, such actions "[…] have an effect on others, or on the world" (Van Leeuwen, 1993, p. 60).PIBID is understood as being one fixed set of activities with the power to 'affect' her profession.As PIBID is seen as the activated social actor, her position as a beneficiary of the processes whose agent is PIBID is linguistically realized through the processes with which she is associated: she 'got' in the program, the program 'provided her' with opportunity to create.
Further, paying a closer look at the transitivity of her discourse, there is a high degree (4 times) of 'cognitive mental processes' evidenced in the use of the verbs 'to think' and 'to know'.By attributing herself the constant use of 'I think' or other 'cognitive processes', Aline stresses her own perspective and knowledge, thus assuming the position of a stakeholder (Engle & Faux, 2006).As I have made explicit earlier, this lexical choice is salient to our understanding of agency in teacher education because ''[…] the greater the power of the social actors, the more likely it is that cognitive, rather than affective, reactions will be attributed to them" (Van Leeuwen, 1993, p. 58).
While Aline elects PIBID as the subject who provided her with opportunities, or, in other words, impacted her development, in her representation, she attributes the role of the context which allowed her to 'create for herself a new meaning for her profession' to PIBID.Again, in this fragment, Aline positions herself as agent of the action, the one also responsible for reconceptualizing the meanings of her education, demonstrating how she is implicated in the process of creating a professional identity.From this perspective, Aline seems to be implicated in the process of her own education as well: she assumes herself as agent with enough El Kadriity to exclaim that 'she can say' that when she '[…] got herself in PIBID' (that is, she had the option and she chose to participate in the program) she 'didn't know' for what exactly she had signed up.
The third social actor represented in this fragment of Aline's discourse is realized by the pronoun 'we' in the sentence 'we were able to find these successful practices'.Such representation emphasizes, again, the representation of herself as part of a group of teachers who acted towards 'finding successful practices' at public schools.However, from a CDA scope, 'we' were able to find these successful practices, means 'they' are not.In this particular representation of social actors through 'differentiation', Aline explicitly differentiates herself -and the group-from another similar group, creating again a difference between the 'self' and the 'other' (Van Leeuwen, 1996).In this instance, she is the one who 'belongs'.
What I endeavor to convey here is that Aline's representation of 'we' is marked by differentiation: when we say we 'are' something it is because we are saying we 'are not' something else.This is precisely the intrinsic and inseparable relationship of interdependence between identity and difference, which mutually determine and constitute each other as Silva (2004) and Woodard (2011) explains: the sameness (or identity) always entails the otherness (or difference).Aline creates this difference through the linguistic choices used to represent her relations.In other words, identity as difference is produced, crafted and created in the social world, in the context of cultural and social relations through language (Silva, 2004;Woodward, 2011).Aline creates the difference between 'we' (the group which she is part of) and 'they' -the others who involved in the teaching practicum-through what Silva (2004) calls, 'border demarcation'.This is significant because differentiation is the core process by which identity and difference is produced (Silva, 2004;Woodward, 2011).From the same line of thought, this use of the pronoun 'we' is seen as one strategy of 'positive self-presentation' (Simpson & Mayr, 2010), which contrasts with the 'negativeother-presentation'.
Taking this into consideration sheds light on our understanding of her identification: Aline could relate to a group that she represented as 'finding successful practices', but not to the other novice teachers, supervisors and teacher educators who work in public schools.
This representation and identification with a particular group is most likely a discourse against the inefficacy of the public sector and Aline's reaction to the discourse that: "English is not taught in public schools" (Aline -novice teacher).It also aligns with the celebratory discourse of PIBID that circulates in academic seminars.
Aline leaves the program evaluating it.She represents PIBID as 'demanding' and finds the fact that she is a pibidiana 'awesome'.Through the adjectives 'demanding' and 'awesome', she positively evaluates the effects of being a pibidiana.This evaluation is strongly linked to her identification.As someone who belongs to a program and, therefore, can be called a pibidiana, Aline represents herself as being part of the 'we' group which is 'demanding, awesome, relevant, has positive things, offers support and has successful results'.She also evaluates 'being a pibidiana' through the affective mental process 'like', which is a subjectively marked evaluation.Evaluating in such a way, Aline demarcates what she believes it means to be a pibidiana.
Aline identifies herself as a pibidiana through the use of relational process (I am a pibidiana), which describes states rather than actions.There is a possible ideological work achieved by the use of these verbs in the present tense: they may present as facts what is essentially the El Kadri's opinion.That is, Aline describes her state as true; the lack of modalization indicates this.
Moreover, the effect caused by the repetition of the pronoun 'we' shows a strong group identity.This is important because if one can name the world in different ways, the possibilities for creating another world exist.Thus, the image created through Aline's representation regarding the pibidian group has the potential to construct new possibilities for action.
The fact that Aline represents herself as a pibidiana ultimately plays an important role.As I articulated in the introduction of this paper, on one side, we may understand such representation as a high degree of identification with the profession, as I initially did.My first interpretation (and part of it was published in El Kadri and Roth (2013), was that Aline was exhibiting a voice of pride in working towards the enhancement of education, a voice of identification with teaching.While it may be true that she identified herself with the 'PIBID program', it also may mean something different.Looking for 'the pibidiana discourse' from the perspective of CDA, this identification may not necessarily mean identification with public schools or the teaching profession.Rather, as I show here, it may indicate that 'pibidians' craft their identity by differentiating themselves from others (El Kadri, 2014) The position Aline assumes, as a pibidiana, is one of the manner in which temporary roles (identity position) are strategically claimed by the self, as well as by the ways in which a person (or discourse) assigns identity positions to others.Aline did not create the term rather, she listens to people referring to themselves as pibidians and she clearly accepts and positively evaluate this title.Aline thinks of it is 'awesome' and a very likeable term.When someone nominates or creates for herself a position in the discourse -as Aline has done -the same time, she/he is excluding the other possibilities of the self.When Aline positions herself as a pibidiana, she is identifying and claiming herself as such.At the same time, she is signaling that she has a different position from other teachers because when we say we 'are' something it is because we are saying we are not anything else: she is neither a 'novice teacher' nor a 'schoolteacher' involved in regular 'teacher education'.This claim and need to call herself a pibidiana may be understood as a reverse discourse, when people engage in forms of resistance through discourse by often rejecting often derogatory classificatory labels (Simpson & Mayr, 2010).Investing in pibidian identity is a way to resist the stereotypes that originally branded novice teachers at schools as 'disturbances'.As the 'reverse discourse' "[…] draws on the very vocabulary or categories of dominant discourses in order to make a case for oppressed groups" (Kingfisher, 1996, p. 541 apud Simpson & Mayr, 2010, p. 120), Aline draws on the recent mainstream discourse of being a pibidiana which, most likely, would be argued by very few people.In addition, by marking herself as a pibidiana, Aline erases some differences (we have a 'group' identity', we share some values) while also creating others.She ascribes a different and a privileged role to herself.Since representation acts symbolically in classifying the world and our relations within it (Hall, 2005), a representation such as this is also a claim for difference and translates the desire of different social groups, situated asymmetrically, of guaranteed, privileged access to social resources.
For Aline, being a pibidiana means to be part of a group to which she belongs.By claiming this identity, she defines what is expected of and socially possible for her (Reeves, 2009).Further, this identity is only possible for her through the ongoing engagement with others (as individuals participate in their day-to-day activities) which emerges in the discursive construction of personal stories that make a person's actions intelligible to others; it makes certain identities possible to be ascribed and claimed.Aline claims for herself this such identity.One of the reasons for the hypothesis as to why Aline would claim this particular identity is because being a pibidiana may signify she is seen as a power social actor at schools.Such an interpretation is possible because where there is differentiation, there is power (Simpson & Mayr, 2010).
Moreover, by claiming herself a pibidiana, Aline clearly points out she has been transformed by the activity.Since being a pibidiana is an outcome of a process of symbolic and discursive production constructed in the social relations of the activity, it only makes sense within a chain of meaning comprised by other identities, within the discourse created regarding teacher identity in Brazil.That is why being a pibidiana -that is, being differentiated as a pibidiana makes sense in Brazil: it gives the participants a different status, a varied role when compared to the general image of teachers.Pibidians are there to 'innovate' in public schools, implying that the school and their teachers do not normally do so.This differentiation is significant in this particular socio-historical cultural context.As Woodward (2011) highlights, some differences are more important than others in specific places and in a specific time (Woodward, 2011).Owing to the fact that the emergence of different identities is historical and therefore, it is placed in a specific time, being a pibidiana in a historical time in which teaching profession is in crisis only makes sense in this context.The fact that there is little motivation for becoming a teacher (Gatti, 2009) may have motivated Aline to find new ways to identify herself.This may be one of the reasons why there are these new forms of positioning: we live in a historical time in which the teaching profession is in crisis and where specific programs for teacher education are launched as a result, which, therefore, allow other identities to emerge.
What Aline does in reinforcing she is a pibidiana may be recognized as an 'authentication', that is, "[…] the assertion of one's own or another's identity as genuine or credible" (Bucholtz, 2003, p. 408) and when fellow members of a community of practice accept the symbolic behavior of an individual as appropriate and 'real' (Block, 2007).This claim for being a pibidiana is significant for Aline's construction of identity because identity is constructed by becoming a 'certain kind of person' (Gee, 2001), which needs to be recognized and affirmed by others in dialogue (Gee, 2001).More precisely, at the same time identities are created in the social relations, individuals have the power to accept or reject it.Aline, here, accepts and claims this identity for herself as if it were the norm.
Through 'normalization', being a pibidiana becomes the pattern regarding how other identities are evaluated: if we are pibidians, 'they are not'.By attributing positive identities and evaluation to a pibidiana, Aline also constructs this identity in relation to others, which makes being a pibidiana a natural, unique and desirable identity.This is the process of subjectification that is at stake.We live our subjectivities in a social context in which language and culture give meaning to the experience that we have of ourselves and in which we adopt an identity (El Kadri & Roth, 2013).Aline's process of transformation and subjectification was marked by a positive evaluation and commitment to the discourse of being a pibidiana.The status of being different from 'the others', the status acquired at schools, and the positive experiences lived are also reasons for which Aline reinforces her identity as a pibidiana.In addition, the process of subjectification was marked by a transformation in her social relations and new ways of being with herself and the others.A new conceptualization of the students and the school setting emerged which was, perhaps, another reason for Aline to invest in this identity.Identities are therefore, created in interactions, between the 'self' and the 'other'.Identity is coconstructed through a social negotiated process with the self, with others and within discourses present in one's life in which individuals claim, assign and reject identities in relation to others (Reeves, 2009).
Being a pibidiana is relevant to our understanding of Aline's transformation because ''[…] learning implies becoming a different person […]'' (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 53) through a change in social status or position.That is why 'teacher trajectories' (Lave & Wenger, 1991) are inextricably bound with identity formation, or, ways of being (Fairclough, 2003).Along with this, being a pibidiana ascribes a certain power: being a part of a group whose objective is to innovate in public schools.The agential identity Aline ascribes to the group and to the practices developed hold significance because agency and identities are dialectically related to structure and mediated through participation in activity through actions (Roth, 2007).

Final consideration
In this paper, I focused on an analysis of the pibidian identity as represented by Aline.As the analysis show, the pibidian identity is constructed through 'differentiation' and 'normalization' and developed as an 'affinity identity'.Thus, it also constructs a 'group identity' and crafted 'agential' identities.Now, I articulate here what it may mean for teacher education programs.
The excerpt shows Aline seem to develop an Affinity identity (Gee, 2001).What seems noteworthy here is the recognition that although an A-identity might be seen exclusively as something that one must actively choose to joinas we could interpret when Aline calls herself a pibidiana -it is not necessarily that simple because presently there has been an attempt by institutions to create affinity groups.
Initiatives in the public policies of Brazil -such as PIBID, for example -from a socio-historicalcultural approach has the objective of creating certain practices in teacher education that ensures teachers have a different kind of experience than the ones they were having in teacher education programs or at schools.This contributes to the construction of identity.In this sense, such policies create the 'structure/the conditions' to create bonds between novice teachers|schools teachers|teacher educators and new relationships between school|university.What this means is that such policies create macro-level desirable parameters for teacher education that have a washback effect in teacher education programs.Thus, we could say that CAPES/MEC is the institution that 'works to construct and sustain a given discourse', that is, works to ensure that a certain combination, at a given time and place, is recognized as coming from a certain kind of person.In this sense, there seems to be the recognition that we need agential teachers working towards innovation at school.On the other hand, there is also a need to acknowledge that we could potentially force someone to engage in specific practices -which could be the case of a novice teacher engaging in teaching practicum within PIBID practices -but one could not coerce another into seeing the particular experiences connected to those practices as constitutive of the 'kind of person' that they are.That is, one could not force another to call, recognize, require, deny or contest the pibidian identity.Therefore, it is at a micro-level, that is, it is only through investigating the discourses and practices (or ways of acting, interacting, representing and being) of each interpretation of the program that one can understand the affinity identities created.In Aline's case, the affinity identity seems to lie in the recognition of their power to act.However, it is impossible to say that this affinity identity means to teach at public schools.
Moreover, such identity is also constructed through 'differentiation', that is, it contributes to an identity differentiated from other participants in the school setting: the Affinity identities created is marked by 'differentiation'.In this sense, Aline's discourse helps to create a naturalized representation of the pibidians, 'we' (the pibidians) are agential and care for the students, 'the others' do not.Pibidian identity is fostered in comparison and by a differentiation from the regular teachers and regular novice teachers.
Also, particularly to Aline's case is the fact that she suggests that a sense of belonging to a 'group' is important for the identities novice teachers.PIBID is positioned as a hanger in which novice teachers and teachers (school teachers or teacher educators) can hang their fears in the companionship of other teachers and novice teachers.Being a part of a community, for Bauman (2003), means to seek safety in an insecure world.Being a pibidiana, for Aline, represents the same space of safety (and a hanger) in the insecure world of becoming a teacher.This is important for the field of teacher education because for effective learning to unfold, participants need a sense of emotional belonging.A sense of belonging, or a sense that one will soon be a part of the group, thus precedes the openness to invest (Norton, 2000) and learn.
Such ways of representation fostered by this context appear relevant to the historical moment of teacher education in Brazil, in which many negative representations of the teaching profession persist.These positive self-representations are significant because the way we nominate and represent the world is linked to ways of acting, which penetrate social processes and practices and shape our identities (Fairclough, 2003).This is particularly important in Brazil where there persists this negative conception in which the teaching career is not nearly as valued and recognized as it is in developed countries (Silva, 2011) and where the images constructed by the media reinforces such representations of teachers, especially when teachers see their daily work represented in negative ways and their identities are featured as not valued or questioned (D'Almas, 2011).These representations of teachers help create and uphold a professional identity characterized as negative and unattractive by students who are choosing their career (Calvo, 2011).
Thus, discursive practices to the extent that they offer such opportunities, are thereby critical to not only the construction of subjectivity but also, learners' subjectivities are important in affording learners' agency in those same discursive practices.That is, as stated earlier, if one can represent the world in different ways, one can create different worlds.Such ways of representing -as agential and as being a pibidiana, for example -allows for other images and therefore, other possibilities for action.The consequence of such ways of representing for teacher education is the creation of different possible identities for teachers with the potential to construct new representations, new realities and therefore, new ways of acting in and towards the school.The discursive practices created in the context of PIBID have provided novice teachers with new ways of positioning themselves.This idea aligns with studies that show the interrelation between the discursive practices in teacher education and the process of change in educational policies (Ortenzi, 2013).The ways of representing herself as a Pibidiana seem to maintain the ideas of previous studies on the representation of pibidians (Mateus & El Kadri, 2012;Corbertt, 2013;El Kadri;Gimenez, 2013).
Aline represents herself (and the pibidians) as 'agential' social actors.As representations of the social life are inherently positioned -the different positions of social actors see and represent it in different ways and through different discourses (Fairclough, 2001) -having a pibidian status produces new subjectivities and representations on what it means to be a teacher.In addition, "[…] it is through meanings that are produced by the representation that we give meaning to our experience and to what we are" (Woodward, 2011, p. 17).What is evidenced is that the representations created within PIBID, on one hand, seem to contribute to a particular representation in which teachers represent themselves and act as agential and thus, creating possibilities for the positionings of new identities.This is significant for our context because crafting agential teacher identities to work in situated practices at schools is perhaps one of the aims of teacher education programs.The experience of positioning themselves as agential and 'becoming' a teacher manifests embedded in the discussion of 'positioning': student-teachers seem to face conflictive situations regarding their positioning during practicum due to the ambiguity of the roles between students and teachers (Barcelos, Batista, & Andrade, 2004;Jordão, 2013) It is important to discuss the position novice teachers assume (and/or reject, I might add) and the possible implication of such position in the context of education (Jordão & Buhrer, 2013).Novice teachers assuming transformative positions at schools and presuming there might be room for change during their initial education may contribute to their future identification with the profession.

Table 1 .
Kinds of identity, process, power and sources of power.