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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.

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.

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.

Much rhetoric around the construct of a work-ready graduate has focused on the technical abilities of students to fulfill the expectations of the future workplace. Efforts have been made to extend from the technical skills (e.g., skills in calculation for engineers) to include soft or behavioral skills (e.g., communication). However, within previous models of understanding of the work-ready graduate there has been little done to explore them as critical moral agents within the workplace. That is, whilst the focus has been on being work-ready, it is argued here that in current and future workplaces it is more important for university graduates to be profession-ready. Our understanding of the profession-ready graduate is characterized by the ability to demonstrate capacities in critical thinking and reflection, and to have an ability to navigate the ethical challenges and shape the organizational culture of the future workplace.

This chapter aims to explore a movement of thinking away from simply aspiring to develop work-ready graduates, expanding this understanding to argue for the development of profession-ready graduates. The chapter begins with an exploration of the debates around the characteristics of being work-ready, and through a consideration of two professional elements: professional identity and critical moral agency, argues for a reframing of work-readiness towards professional-readiness. The chapter then considers the role of work-integrated learning (WIL) in being able to support the development of the profession-ready graduate.

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.

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.

This chapter draws upon a wider project on the development of teacher identity in preservice education. The aim is to look at the effects of a given pedagogy which was designed and enacted in a Master degree in Teaching. The project draws upon existing international research literature on teacher identity which highlights the dynamic and multifaceted nature of the process as well as the pivotal role of preservice teacher education as a context for identity development. The main themes are explored through student teachers’ own voices (N = 20). Issues such as learning about becoming a teacher; exploring the unknown; making the implicit explicit; initial beliefs and theories about being a teacher; teachers’ role and work; from a student perspective towards a teacher perspective; expectations about teaching as a profession: skepticism and hope; and aspirations as preservice teachers are analyzed. The chapter concludes with insights and recommendations for others who might like to try this pedagogy in their respective international teacher education milieus.

This chapter draws on a larger study on beginning teachers and on their experiences of becoming a teacher in unprecedented challenging circumstances in Portugal. The aim is to look at the ways in which changes in policy and school context, as well as in personal and professional context, impact teachers’ professional identity over time. Two beginning teachers’ accounts are used to illustrate the key influencing factors that have impacted the development of professional identities. Four main themes emerged: (a) the influence of context, both at a policy and social level and at a school level; (b) the importance of relationships in teaching, particularly with students and colleagues; (c) the emergence of inner tensions resulting from the mismatch between strong beliefs and reality; and (d) the role of emotions in (re)defining teachers’ practice of teaching and teachers’ identity development. The chapter concludes with the discussion of the findings and their implications.

The underrepresentation of African-American faculty in the US professoriate has persisted for some time. Relatedly, adjunct faculty remain a fast-growing sector of the professoriate. Adjunct faculty include “experts” and “specialists” who teach postsecondary courses with a narrow focus and with content tailored to their full-time employment. Using a qualitative narrative approach, I delineate ways I construct meaning for myself as a part-timer. I develop a cultural interpretation of adjunct teaching that provides alternative view of professional socialization to counter the ongoing challenge of increasing the number of Black faculty in higher education. In doing so, three themes from the data (ideal worker as adjunct, historical role models, and clinical value of course content) suggest the identity of part-time faculty is situated in personal, professional, and cultural experiences.

Some scholars believe that students should achieve discipline-specific competence before attempting an interdisciplinary synthesis of knowledge. Furthermore, one of the often-cited downsides of interdisciplinary scholarship is its lack of identity with, and consequently its failure to benefit from, membership of a discipline. Monash and Flinders universities have challenged that perspective by introducing interdisciplinary programmes to novice biotechnology undergraduates in their first semester of tertiary study. The lack of knowledge in the various disciplines presents significant pedagogical challenges. However, the programmes have the benefit of developing the professional identity of the students as biotechnologists and, additionally, through exploration of contexts, can help students understand why they study some disciplines: chemistry being one example. Both programmes use the interdisciplinarity of authentic cases to provide a framework for students to explore particular discipline issues and their interrelationships. The success of these programmes in creating identity reflects their focus beyond the internal and external boundaries of the university.