114 Chapter 4 Relationship between beliefs about teaching and learning, and awareness of educational identity and mission. Exploring the relationship between the belief orientations and the teacher profiles revealed several combinations (see Table 4.2). Every educator unaware of their educational identity or mission (in the ‘Practitioner’ profile) showed a teaching-centred belief orientation. In contrast, every educator aware of both their educational identity and mission (in the ‘Inspirer profile’) showed a learningcentred belief orientation. Of the educators with an awareness of their educational identity, but no awareness of their mission (in the ‘Role model’ profile), some educators showed teaching-centred belief orientations while others held learningcentred orientations. The most learning-centred belief orientation (VI) , labelled ‘Negotiating meaning,’ was only present in the educators with an awareness of their educational identity and mission (in the ‘Inspirer’ profile). The two beliefs in which this belief orientation (VI) differs from the second most learning-centred orientation (V), labelled ‘Sharing the responsibility for developing expertise,’ are related to the importance of fostering students’ existing conceptions and intrinsic motivations. Interviewer: What do students bring to the learning process? Participant: They bring different points of view, … I think that is very engaging for other people including their professors; how they think about problems helps other people learn; they bring new ideas in that you haven’t even thought about. (…) I use them or I learn from them. (S10) I really work hard to get to know these students at a personal level. (…) to know a little better about their own interests and experiences and draw on these as part of the teaching and learning that we do, to make it seem so relevant to them. (S13) DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Based on the results of our study on the relationship between educators’ beliefs about teaching and learning, and their awareness of their educational identity and mission, we conclude that these two areas of inquiry are aligned. Educators who are not aware of their educational identity or mission have teaching-centred
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