115 Educational beliefs, identity and mission 4 beliefs, while educators with an awareness of their identity and mission have learning-centred beliefs. Since learning-centred beliefs will enable educators to successfully implement learning-centred education, the present study sheds light on the importance of educational identity and mission for educators working in learning-centred curricula. The relationship between a lack of identity and mission awareness (in the Practitioner profile) and teaching-centredness can be explained, as the primary focus of educators with teaching-centred beliefs is on transmitting the content of the subject matter, in other words on what should be taught, rather than on how content can best be learned by the students. This focus is consistent with the Practitioner profile’s emphasis on an educator’s competencies and behaviours to deliver this content. The finding that educators who are not aware of their educational identity do not hold learning-centred beliefs confirms the importance of identity awareness for learning-centred education. We can conclude that educators whose beliefs about teaching and learning align with the learningcentred educational context in which they work, are aware of their educational identity, or, in other words, are aware of who they are as teachers. The study of Dory et al.,16 even though not focusing on beliefs relevant for learning-centred education, confirmed that teaching beliefs aligned with the educational context are related to awareness of an educational identity. It is conceivable that educators who are aware of their educational identity are more motivated to reflect on whether their teaching role aligns with their teaching beliefs and with the learning-centred educational context, than educators for whom their educational identity is less evident. The finding that some educators with an awareness of their educational identity (in the Role model profile) show teaching-centred belief orientations may be explained by the fact that, although the formal educational context embraces learning-centred education, the implicit educational culture of the organisation may still favour teaching-centred beliefs. Several studies have indeed shown that the educational culture in organisations can sometimes have a constraining influence on the beliefs about teaching and learning of educators.26-28 Our finding that the educators who are aware of their educational mission (in the Inspirer profile) all show learning-centred belief orientations underlines the relevance of an educator’s educational mission awareness in learning-centred education. Awareness of an educational mission is apparently an effective ‘antidote’ to the constraining influences of the implicit educational culture, and
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