Applying a psychological lens to educators’ professional identity: the case of English for Academic Purposes educators

This paper advances the social identity approach as a valuable theoretical lens for interrogating teaching-related professional identities, illustrating its analytical utility through a case study of English for Academic Purposes educators in higher education. Despite their pivotal role in supporting internationalisation agendas and student success, English for Academic Purposes educators often occupy structurally marginal and ambiguously defined positions, situated between academic and professional domains. Drawing on the two core components of the social identity approach—social identity theory and self-categorisation theory—this paper offers a social-psychological framework for examining how status, belonging and legitimacy are negotiated by English for Academic Purposes educators in roles historically undervalued within higher education academic hierarchies. The analysis carried out within this paper foregrounds key social identity processes, such as in-group identification (how individuals locate themselves within communities), perceptions of boundary permeability (the perceived openness of group boundaries and opportunities for movement between communities), and the ideological positioning of teaching (how teaching is framed and valued within institutional hierarchies). In doing so, the paper demonstrates the utility of the social identity approach in theorising the structural and psychological dynamics that influence teaching identities in higher education, offering new insight into the identity struggles and strategies of this group of educators.