Teacher identity in the current teacher education landscape

Abstract

In this chapter we examine the relationship between pre-service teacher identity development and the contemporary policy landscape of teacher education in the United States. More specifically, we utilize sociocultural perspectives on identity to illuminate the holistic process of professional learning of two pre-service teachers undergoing their student teaching practicum. As a complex intersection of often-competing clusters of beliefs and practices from the university side of teacher preparation and the PK-12 school side of practice, the practicum makes visible conflicting contemporary views of teacher learning, teachers’ work, and the future of university teacher education. Pre-service teachers must navigate and negotiate the effects of these competing views as they learn to enact their own personal visions and practices that they are learning in their teacher education program. We use this chapter to reciprocally examine teacher identity as both the process of this complex learning and the dynamic result.