Teachers in social networks

Being one of the most pervasive technological developments in recent times, the advent of online social networks has had a profound impact on how individuals identify themselves. As such, this dissertation uses Goffman's self-presentation theory and other studies on the self to examine how teachers employed in Turkey's eighty-one provinces during the 2021–2022 academic year self-identify on social media and how this impacts their instructional practices. In short, the aim of this dissertation seeks to understand how social networks affect teachers' self-presentations and educational practices. In the research, teachers completed an online questionnaire and participated in online interviews as part of the study. The quantitative part of this mixed-method research consisted of a survey study conducted with 6,005 teachers active on social networks. Frequency distributions and avarage scores determined and percentages for the quantitative data collected. For the qualitative part of the study, twenty-five teachers were interviewed teaching different subject areas in different grades in Turkey's different regions. All the interviews were conducted online and aimed to determine teachers' instructional practices on online social networks and how they regarded their social media persona. Then, all the data were handled with a holistic approach and evaluated with the inductive data analysis method. The findings demonstrate that the way teachers use social networks differs from other groups, that teachers express themselves more candidly and aggressively when their identities remain hidden or anonymous, that they try increase their social capital by attracting attention to themselves, that they abstain from making political posts in order not to risks their social networks, that societal expectations inform how they present an ideal image of themselves, that they go to great lengths to portray themselves as different from others, that they integrate their social networks into their educational practices, that they successfully improve their professional knowledge and skills by communication with other teachers and through peer learning, and that such networks are important tools in increasing teacher and student motivation. This dissertation ends by recommending a digital platform based on the findings that takes into account teachers' interests, needs, and inclinations.