Tracing Preservice Teacher Agency Through Language

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring Discourses of Teaching and Being a Teacher

Abstract

This paper presents data to reconfigure preservice teacher agency as premeditated deliberate choices made in recognized opportunities. I examined how four preservice elementary teachers used language to negotiate conflicting Discourses of Teaching and Teachers in university coursework and field experiences to take agentic actions in their culminating student teaching field experiences. Critical sociocultural theory provides a framework to analyze how preservice teachers used language to mediate agency. Analysis of longitudinal language data revealed that preservice teachers experienced five critical elements for agency: negotiation of personal and professional identities to bolster productive teacher identities, talk with supportive listeners about navigating conflicting Discourses of teaching, frustration with dissonance to implement actions, acute awareness of educational contexts, and appropriate timing to implement actions.

Author

• Anne Swenson Ticknor, East Carolina University