Construction of Teacher Professional Identity through Initial Training

Abstract

The construction of a professional identity is a key element in the transition to the teaching profession, which begins its development at the initial training, especially during professional training courses. Purpose: This article collects the experiences related to the construction of the teaching identity of teachers who graduated from two state universities of the Santiago Metropolitan Region in Chile. Methodology: Interpretative-qualitative research was carried out, framed in a phenomenological design. Semi-structured interviews were applied to 10 teachers who graduated from a course of Primary Education Teaching in 2014 and are still practicing the profession in the school system. Categories and subcategories were created from their tellings, establishing relationships between teacher identity and initial training. Results: This study shows that teachers value their initial training, especially regarding values, discipline, and experiences of training in different contexts as constitutive elements of their professional identity. However, both groups describe unsatisfactory situations experienced as beginner teachers, where they recognized the weaknesses of their initial training for overcoming the complexities of the school context. Conclusions: This study points to the need to strengthen the articulation in the process of training from university onwards and the support of the educational establishment.