Identity and Ideology in the Lives of Nomad Teachers in Taiwan

This dissertation analyzes the impact of neoliberal oriented teacher education reform in Taiwan by examining identity and ideology in the lives of nomad teachers who are certified teachers but can not find full time teaching jobs. It considers the making of nomad teachers as a process that is constituted out of multiple dynamic interrelationships among social structures, cultural structures and social agencies. The dissertation takes reproduction and resistance theories as analytic lenses to demonstrate how neoliberal ideology (which simplifies lives as processes of choice-making on the basis of self-interest) helps to strengthen existing social relations and how nomad teachers respond to different moments of choice-making and being chosen in their lives in the pro-choice social context.