THE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES OF A GROUP OF EARLY YEARS STUDENT TEACHERS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

The focus of this paper is the development of students' identities as teachers before and during a 4 year Bachelor of Education degree course. Initially using a community of practice lens (Lave & Wenger, 1991) it considers how the students' emerging professional identities may be shaped through their engagement in campus-based experiences and placements in a range of settings. It draws upon an exploratory study in which students were asked to pictorially represent how they had seen themselves as teachers at the start of the course, their key experiences during the course and how they wanted others to see them as professionals in two years time. This was followed up by obtaining written reflections on the role of theory in their development. Analysis of the data suggested that the campus-based elements, and in particular the exposure to the theoretical underpinnings of Early Years education, may have been less significant than was presumed by their tutors. Reasons for this are put forward and the paper argues the need for more support for students during their training in understanding and developing robust and coherent teacher identities.