Student identity construction in online teacher education: A narrative life history approach

This paper explores student identity construction through the narrative life history of one non-traditional student, engaged in teacher education in a nontraditional way – a fully online university degree course. The students within this course are all mature-aged. Most are female, and 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 paper explores the challenges for one student created by the need to negotiate this complexity. Through this exploration using narrative life history methods, the paper considers the implications of the experience of becoming a student and a teacher.