Source: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Volume 26, Issue 8, 2013, pages 1004-1018
This article explores student identity construction through the narrative life history of one non-traditional student, engaged in teacher education in a non-traditional way – a fully online university degree course.
Most of the students within this course are female.
They have already developed personal identities as partners, friends and mothers, as well as professional identities such as teacher aides.
Adding the new identity of “student” to these already established roles has an impact on these participants’ actions, beliefs, experiences and hence on their identities.
Further, the notion that they are now “pre-service teachers” forces students to consider their professional identity in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways.
This article explores the challenges for one student created by the need to negotiate this complexity.
Through this exploration using narrative life history methods, the authors consider the implications of the experience of becoming a student and a teacher.