Dialogic Tensions in Pre-Service Subject Teachers’ Identity Negotiations

ABSTRACT

This study explores how five pre-service subject teachers from different disciplines made sense of and characterized their teacher identity after completing their yearlong pedagogical studies. Leaning on the Bakhtinian dialogical approach and socio-culturally oriented discourse analysis, we examine how the students negotiated multiple voices in their narratives (interviews) and how they positioned themselves in relation to these voices. In the students’ identity negotiation, the Discourse based on participatory pedagogy and education responsibility contradicted with the Discourse of traditional pedagogy that the students had as a cultural resource from their own youth. These different Discourses collided with each other and were tested and reflected in an internal dialogue. Through this process, the students negotiated their prospective subject teacher identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogical approach
• positioning
• pre-service teacher identity
• teacher education
• voice

Acknowledgements

We express our warmest thanks to Paula Rönnberg, the pedagogical studies teacher, and the five students who participated in the study. We are also grateful to the reviewers and Professor Tone Kvernbekk, the editor, for their valuable comments and constructive criticism that helped us to revise this paper into its current form.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.