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http://DOI.ORG/10.33234/SSR.20.7
What Teachers Look Like:
Preservice Teachers’ Representations Through 15 Years of Images
Elvira K. Katić
Ramapo College of New Jersey
Abstract
This study examined teacher images created by preservice teachers over the course of a 15-year case study. The focus of this essay is on the results of the physical characteristics attributed to teachers in the resulting images. The preservice teachers were asked to draw an image of a teacher during a foundational course in their teacher education program. Semiotic analyses of the images showed that preservice teachers drew teachers with physical characteristics that did not have equivalent correlations to concrete United States statistics for those same characteristics, with the exceptions of gender and hair color. Percentages of some teacher physical characteristics were nearly contrary to concrete statistics, such as those for age and body shape/weight. Through images, preservice teachers in this study revealed expectations of teacher appearance that were not based in reality, but rather on internalized assumptions, stereotypes, personal experiences, and self-projection.
Key Words: visual semiotics, preser vice teachers, produced images, perceptions of teaching, longitudinal case study 