THE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHERS: A VIEW FROM BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES

This study aimed to investigate the development of the professional identity of recent graduates from a Physical Education Teaching Degree Program by analyzing their personal trajectory and exploring the experiences they had throughout their lives, from childhood to the very initial training in Physical Education. We chose to use biographical narratives, in which the three recently graduated teachers were interviewed and were able to tell their lives, arranging and rearranging events, memories, feelings and opinions. By using semi-structured interviews, we draw on a joint analysis with the collaborators to interpret the collected material. We observed two types of professional identity of different teachers, directly linked to professional profiles: the first type related to teaching classes and the second identified with a coordinating or management activity, with an emphasis on the self-development processes during their training trajectory.