A Duoethnographic study of professional identity negotiation by two returned art theory teachers in Chinese higher education

Abstract

Introduction Internationalization requires returned academics to reconsider pedagogical commitments developed across different educational contexts. This study explored how two returned university art theory teachers in southern China negotiated professional identities while adapting their teaching to changing classroom conditions. Methods A duoethnographic design brought one teacher’s contemporaneous reflections into dialogue with the other’s retrospective accounts of comparable early-career experiences. Dialogues, reflective accounts, observation notes, and teaching materials were examined through reflexive thematic analysis. Results The analysis identified learner, explorer, and pedagogical enactor as overlapping identity positions that the teachers entered and revisited through reflection and practice. Classroom responses unsettled existing assumptions and prompted further inquiry into theoretical explanation, participation, and student agency. Through dialogue, the teachers developed more contextually responsive approaches that combined conceptual scaffolding with opportunities for discussion and culturally situated interpretation. Discussion The findings present professional identity negotiation as a recursive and situated process in which dialogic reflection connected teacher learning with pedagogical decision making. Farrell’s reflective domains helped interpret how the teachers’ concerns connected educational purposes, pedagogical commitments, classroom practices, and wider sociocultural conditions. The study provides a context-specific account of how two returned art theory teachers reconsidered overseas pedagogical commitments in Chinese higher education.