Open AccessBeginning Student Teachers’ Professional Identity
Author(s) -
Gregor Steinbeiss
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta didactica napocensia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2065-1430
DOI - 10.24193/adn.14.1.12
Subject(s) - identity (music) , pedagogy , psychology , professional development , perspective (graphical) , teacher education , personality , mathematics education , social psychology , mathematics , physics , geometry , acoustics
This article investigates teachers’ professional identity of beginning first-year students through their beliefs about being a teacher. The presented study focuses on Austrian teacher students’ (N=18) conceptions of becoming a professional; what convictions student teachers reflect on, which professional identity emerges and what synthesis of a professional teacher identity position can be portrayed at the beginning of teacher education. Through inductively driven content analysis all statements (N=401) have been combined, and a unified synthesis of a beginning student teachers’ professional identity was formed. Three main categories were found: the “ideal” teacher, “good” teaching, and the “optimal” working environment. The results showed a highly idealistic view of being a teacher. The majority of statements referred to teaching from a pupil-centered perspective by strongly emphasising personality traits, student-teacher relationships, and teachers’ professional knowledge. Based on the results, the role of professional identity in Austrian’s teacher education is discussed, and further implementations in research are recommended.