Building Teacher Identity in a New Partnership Project, - Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores the process of identity building among novice student teachers enrolled in a newly established partnership project embedded in a four-year Norwegian teacher education program. The empirical evidence in the study is drawn from a case study where interviews were the main method of gathering data. The analysis of narratives from the interviews is premised on multiple perspectives. The findings are presented as a reconstructed story with a plot in which the novice student teachers are the chief protagonists. The study illuminates both catalysts and inhibitors of student teachers´ identity building in the caring contexts of teaching practice and threatening contexts of theory, and in more play-like contexts bridging theory and practice. It indicates that the theoretical part of the teacher education program may give rise to a theory shock among novice student teachers that appears to have been in the shadow of the well-documented practice shock.