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.