Abstract
This study examines how a problematic work-related issue is raised in a large self-organized thematic professional Facebook group and how the topic is continued in the discussion that follows. Based on big data from a large corpus assembled through the Facebook Application Programming Interface, a unique case thread is selected for in-depth analysis. The aim is to analyse how social support is performed through professional identity work in moment-by-moment online interactions. The findings illustrate how the performance of social support in a thread includes both supportive and remedial interchanges that reveal emergent impression management and a mutually shaped professional teacher identity. Further, the findings indicate that member performance, generally relatively neutral in non-critical discussion threads, changes in relation to the problematic work-related issue in the post that challenges the collective identity of the group. This means that the interaction engenders cooperative and supportive interchanges that motivate members to perform as a team and cooperate as supportive team members.
Keywords
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For example, the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) or the Programme for International Student Assessment.
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Acknowledgements
This research is a part of a larger research project on teacher professional learning in social media funded by the Swedish Research Council Dnr 2014–2135 and conducted within the University of Gothenburg Learning and Media Technology Studio (http://socav.gu.se/english/centers/letstudio-the-university-of-gothenburg-learning-and-mediatechnology-studio) and the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (http://lincs.gu.se).
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Peterson, L., Lantz-Andersson, A., Hillman, T., Lundin, M., Bergviken Rensfeldt, A. (2019). “Going on Trial”: Teachers’ Team Performance in Social Media Groups When Facing Problematic Work-Related Issues. In: Bagga-Gupta, S., Messina Dahlberg, G., Lindberg, Y. (eds) Virtual Sites as Learning Spaces. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26929-6_9
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