The Making of a Professional: Professional Identity Formation in Teacher Education

• In Event: Preservice Teachers' Identity Formation

Abstract

Scholarship on teacher professionalism has traditionally focused on the structural dimensions of teachers’ work, whereas scholarship on teachers’ professional identities focuses on the individual processes wherein teachers learn to become a “professional.” Although these two bodies of scholarship are not often examined alongside one another, understanding their relationship may provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms which drive teacher professionalization. This study employs an in-depth case study of a teacher candidate in a practice-based teacher education program. We examine how her professional identity formation is shaped by the broader the political and institutional contexts she was operating within. Our findings suggest an emerging framework for situating teachers’ professional identity formation in broader debates about the professionalization of teaching.

Authors

• Maya Kaul, University of Pennsylvania

• Elizabeth Donat, University of Washington - Seattle

• Taylor Stafford, University of Washington - Seattle