Teacher Training as Identity Construction: Grassroots Narratives and Emerging Critical Plots
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15160/2038-1034/3257Keywords:
professionalization, pre-service teacher training, motivation, narrative plotAbstract
This contribution aims to investigate how teachers’ motivations and the life trajectories that have led them to pursue professionalization pathways can inform the redesign and better definition of initial teacher education programmes. The study, conducted on a sample of participants enrolled in initial teacher training pathways (30 and 60 ECTS credits), analyses their narratives as presented in the initial section of their e-portfolios. Both motivational dimensions and five recurring narrative plots (discovery, confirmation, crisis, affiliation, and project) were identified and compared across participants with and without prior teaching experience. The findings highlight the need for situated training dispositifs and show how the process of professional identity construction is complex and individualized, with the very notion of professionalization taking on diverse and personal meanings.
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