Foreword by Hubert Hermans

Abstract

When a society becomes more complex and heterogeneous, the identity of teachers "is also chal-lenged to become more complex and heterogeneous. The school, as a reflection of society, needs flexible educators, capable of adapting to change. From the perspective of Dialogical Self Theory, this flexibility translates into the need to adopt a multiplicity of positions of the self as involved in permanent dialogue. These I-positions have the quality of being individual, but also social and their coalition with the I-positions of others can generate shared positions or We-positions. This is an indis-pensable condition to achieve the successful development of innovative educational projects. Among the different functions that I-positions can adopt, two are crucial. The activation of meta-positions that allow reflection on the other, more specific, positions and promoter-positions that provide a de-velopmental impetus and direction to the other positions. The text ends by underlining the relevance of this dialogical perspective to the contemporary world.

Keywords

• Social Change
• Educational Models
• multiplicity of I-positions
• Dialogical Self Theory