An Investigation of the Situated Identities of Elementary Education Student Teachers

• In Event: 61.047 - Communities of Practice in Place-Based, Field-Based, and University-Based Programs

Abstract

Abstract: Many beginning teachers face a range of personal and professional challenges as they navigate new social and institutional contexts, grapple with multiple and at times conflicting professional identities, and begin to forge their own personal pedagogies of teacher education. Student teachers placed in Midwestern, public elementary schools were observed and interviewed as they completed their student teaching placements and constructed their own teacher identities. These case studies were framed by Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice framework to better understand the process of this identity formation as it was situated in the context of the student teaching placement. This study allows us to illuminate the process of how these student teachers formed new teaching identities during their student teaching placement.

Authors

• Jennifer Conner-Zachocki, Indiana University - Purdue University at Columbus

• Sharon Daley, Indiana University - Bloomington