Becoming an authentic teacher appears to be a developmental process that relies on experience, maturity, self-exploration, and reflection. It is the purpose of this volume to explore a variety of ways of thinking about authenticity in teaching, from the perspective of both scholars and practitioners.

This volume addresses five overlapping and interrelated aspects of teaching that impact a teacher's authenticity:

• self-awareness and self-exploration
• awareness of others (especially students)
• relationships with students
• awareness of cultural, social, and educational contexts and their influence on practice
• critical self-reflection on teaching

Authenticity is one of those concepts, like soul, spirit, or imagination, that are easier to define in terms of what they are not than what they are. We can fairly easily say that someone who lies to students or pretends to know or who deliberately dons a teaching persona is not authentic. But do the opposite behaviors guarantee authentic teaching? Not necessarily...

This is the 111^th volume of the quarterly journal, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education.

Click here to access an entire list of issues for this journal.