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Research on student teacher learning has identified development of a professional identity as an inevitable focus in teacher education. Accordingly, many teacher education programs have come to include attention for the development of student teachers’ professional identities, but not much research has been done on the (effects of) pedagogies that have such development as their goal. Pedagogies that aim at developing teacher identity share common elements, such as the view that developing a professional identity is an ongoing process and the view that developing a professional identity as a teacher unmistakably includes a combination of personal and professional (including contextual) aspects. This chapter describes pedagogies that focus particularly on the development of student teachers’ and beginning teachers’ professional identity, from different angles, but sharing the views as described above. First, we describe two pedagogies that have “key incidents” in student teachers’ development as focus point. Second, we report on the “subject-autobiography,” in which student teachers describe and develop how their identity is shaped in relation to the subject they (learn to) teach. Third, we describe the “at-tension” program, which teachers follow during their first year of teaching, and which focuses particularly on the professional tensions that they experience in their first year of teaching, and how they personally and professionally deal with socialization in the school context. Together, these pedagogies reflect our view that professional identity development is underlying the entire teacher education program. This view implies that only a combination of various-focus pedagogies enables student teachers to develop a full-fledged professional identity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how refugees from a professional career domain restore a coherent narrative when confronting barriers to recognition of their former career status. It focuses in particular on the identity work in which they engage in order to reconcile tensions between their current status as refugees and their professional identity.

In total, 15 refugees to the UK who were professionally qualified in medicine or teaching in their country of origin took part in interviews or focus groups exploring career barriers, plans and future aspirations. Initial inductive thematic analysis identified recognition of professional identities as a primary concern. Further analytic iterations between theory and empirical material sharpened the focus on identifying the tensions in their professional identity work.

Participants struggled both to restore their former professional identity and to develop alternative identities. Professional identity work limited, but also sustained them in the face of barriers they encountered as refugees.

More support for refugee career development would facilitate adaptation to local job markets, thereby addressing gaps in education and health services in the UK.

The paper highlights the tensions in refugee professional identity work and particularly the challenges and rewards of professional identification in the face of employment barriers.

In this chapter, a model to understand teachers’ professional identity, appraisals and behaviours in the classroom is presented and illustrated with empirical data. It is argued that the comparison between interpersonal identity standards and interpersonal appraisals of classroom situations results in two types of emotions experienced by teachers. One type of emotion is the direct result of teachers’ interpretations of, and coping with, specific classroom events whereby their emotions are part of the appraisal process of situations and evaluated in the light of their interpersonal role identity standards. The second type of emotion emerges as a result of tensions or dilemmas of prolonged differences between appraisals and identity standards. It is argued that the Teacher Interpersonal Identity Role and Appraisal model is helpful for both researchers and practitioners to better understand, recognise and support beginning (and experienced) teachers with emotions that occur in the classroom, and to help stimulate both their personal as well as professional development.

Interest in supporting the development of teachers’ professional identity in preservice and in-service teacher education programs has increased in recent decades considerably, given that teachers’ sense of their professional identity manifests itself in job satisfaction, occupational commitment, self-efficacy, and changes in their levels of motivation (i.e., Day, 2002). In this chapter, we present different pedagogies that have been enacted in the Estonian context to support the development of preservice and novice teachers’ professional identity. The pedagogies have been divided into three groups: pedagogies that facilitate the professional aspect of teacher identity, pedagogies that address the personal aspect of teacher identity, and pedagogies that support the interaction of the professional and personal aspects of teacher identity.

To explore how student teachers (re)construct their professional identities, this chapter contextualizes two student teachers’ practicum experiences in China. The overarching question is how the student teachers (re)construct their professional identities in the practicums, especially where their teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge meet. By analyzing a flexible matrix of paired stories, the research highlights the collective influences of the multiple instructional contexts: nation-wide Free Teacher Education program policy, recent national curriculum reform in China, and the characteristics of the placement schools. The chapter finds that the student teachers’ professional identities are dynamic and evolving on the professional knowledge landscape. The (re)construction of professional identities involves developing practical knowledge and metaphors by negotiating the tensions the student teachers encountered in the practicums. Meanwhile, the student teachers experienced reflective turns (Schön, 1991) in the practicums, which caused the tension between teacher knowledge and subject matter knowledge and contributed to the formation of their professional identities.

The primary care sector is experiencing considerable change. How change and uncertainty are accommodated by the professional identity of medicine has not been examined. The purpose of this paper is to address the youth healthcare as an exemplar as this field is often a source of uncertainty for general practitioners (GPs).

Using heterogeneity sampling, 22 GPs participated in focus groups to explore perceptions of youth healthcare, factors that help and hinder it, and training needs. Analysis of the research material was guided by a theoretical model on professional identity.

GPs described tensions that challenged their professional identity – the challenges of working with young people and their complex issues, the extent to which youth healthcare sits within the purview of general practice, and the scope of training required. These tensions appeared to destabilise professional identity. Some participants had customised their identity by enriching understandings of and approach to general practice. Participants also reported work customisation as a way of managing the complex demands of the general practice role. Deepened insight appeared to bolster perceived capacity to support a complex patient cohort.

Participants are not representative of the primary care sector – furthermore, the methodology limits the generalisability of the findings.

To bolster youth health, mere clinician training is insufficient. Youth health requires explicit support from governments and training providers to be incorporated into the healthcare landscape.

This study extends current research on professional identity by examining youth healthcare within the changing context of primary care.

Recognizing the importance of developing professional identities and valuing the work of school-based teacher educators, this chapter outlines a specific context in which teacher leaders self-identified and worked across contexts to support teacher development within their schools. This chapter’s primary focus includes the perceptions and experiences of teacher leaders in school–university partnerships connected to one university in one identified role: liaison-in-residence. Three themes resulted from analysis of transcripts, journals, and memos: teacher leader identity developed within democratic leadership; teacher leader positionality stirs tensions in professional identity; and service and equity as key guideposts for leading and learning.

Identity is a disputed concept. A clear-cut, unitary definition of identity is impossible as it “bears a multivalent, even contradictory theoretical burden” (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000, p. 8). Existing literature shows that teacher identity or teacher professional identity is defined differently. In some cases, there is no definition at all. This chapter summarizes how research on teacher identity evolved in the last two decades. A total of 33 papers on teacher identity were reviewed. To analyze the data, we developed a conceptual framework on teacher identity based on the reviewed papers. In reviewing the literature, we found four lines of studies that have attracted more attention from educational researchers: (1) research on factors shaping teachers' professional identities, (2) studies highlighting the tensions and crises in teachers' professional identities, (3) approaches and models to the construction of teachers' professional identities, and (4) research on students' and beginning teachers' identities. Two different conceptions of teacher identity were found in these lines of research: strong and soft approaches. Strong conception of identity emphasizes sameness over time or across persons. Soft or weak conception of teacher identity, in contrast, is based on the premise that identity is flexible and unstable over time and across persons. Most of the research adopted the soft conception. Thus, the strong conception of teacher identity was understudied. Hence, we do not know what counts as the core professional values or meaning in strong conception of teacher identity. Relying on general pedagogy, we propose a framework based on moral, aesthetic, and rational foundations for developing a strong conception of teacher identity.

This chapter outlines research conducted by Karan Vickers-Hulse (KVH) as part of an educational professional doctorate; Marcus Witt (MW) was one of her supervisory team. Participants were from two initial teacher education (ITE) routes (School Direct and university-led) leading to a PGCE primary teacher qualification. The research was set within the context of continuously evolving policy on the training of teachers and the subsequent impact on developing a professional identity. The introduction of new ITE routes in England (DfE, 2015) aimed to offer a wider range of pathways into teaching, attract more applicants and mitigate the impact of teacher shortages. The research discussed in this chapter explored the experiences of trainees on these routes and the impact on their professional identity formation. This chapter begins with an overview of the literature in the field of professional identity formation, followed by a discussion of the chosen methodology and methods. This chapter concludes with several recommendations for teacher training providers as well as recommendations for future research that may be useful for doctoral students interested in the field of professional identity formation.

This chapter provides an illustration of doctoral case study research and insights to how practitioner research can capture the localised impact of policy shifts.