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Dialogue for Bridging Student Teachers’ Personal and Professional Identity

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The Dialogical Self Theory in Education

Part of the book series: Cultural Psychology of Education ((CPED,volume 5))

Abstract

This research on student teachers’ professional identity formulation contributes to the emerging development of utilizing dialogical approaches in teacher identity research. Following the conceptual framework and practical implications of Alsup (2006) and Hermans and Hermans-Konopka (2010), we developed support for professional identity development. The main aim of the support was to facilitate the negotiation and solving of tensions between student teachers’ professional and personal I-positions.

Data was collected in the form of written assignments from 50 students from different subject teacher training curricula during a pedagogical course seminar in one university in Estonia. Inductive analysis was conducted on the written assignment by two researchers.

The results revealed that the developed support was functional for communicating tensions between conflicting positions and partly functional for solving tensions between positions. Implications for practice and further research are presented.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Education, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Äli Leijen

  2. The School of Natural Sciences and Health, the study area of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Katrin Kullasepp

  3. Department of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Aivi Toompalu

Authors
  1. Äli Leijen
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  2. Katrin Kullasepp
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  3. Aivi Toompalu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Äli Leijen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Meijers Onderzoek & Advies , Wijchen, The Netherlands

    Frans Meijers

  2. Emeritus-professor of psychology, Radboud University of Nijmegen Emeritus-professor of psychology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Hubert Hermans

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Leijen, Ä., Kullasepp, K., Toompalu, A. (2018). Dialogue for Bridging Student Teachers’ Personal and Professional Identity. In: Meijers, F., Hermans, H. (eds) The Dialogical Self Theory in Education. Cultural Psychology of Education, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62861-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62861-5_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62860-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62861-5

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