Professional identity values and tensions for early career teachers

Abstract

This study follows a cohort of early career teachers who graduated from the same teacher education program into their second year of teaching to analyze how their professional identity (hereafter PI) developed after entering the profession. In a previous phase of this research, graduates were interviewed as they completed the degree; those graduates seemed to have a strong sense of PI and were optimistic about their careers (Nickel & Zimmer, 2019 Nickel, J., & Zimmer, J. (2019). Professional identity in graduating teacher candidates. Teaching Education, 30(2), 145–159. doi: 10.1080/10476210.2018.1454898[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The research literature suggests that entering the teaching profession provokes many tensions for new teachers; while these tensions may foster learning, unresolved tensions may prompt teachers to leave the profession. This study explores how the ideals of these new teachers persisted or changed in the first two years of teaching, strengths and growth areas in meeting those ideals, and tensions and supports that were impactful.