AJSR 2013, González Calvo, et al

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American Journal of Sociological Research 2013, 3(4): 101-110DOI: 10.5923/j.sociology.20130304.03

(Re)Construction of a Teacher´s Professional Identityfrom His Initial Training: Autobiographical Narration

Gustavo González-Calvo*, José Ignacio Barbero-González, Nicolás Bores-Calle, Lucio Martínez-Álvarez

Physical Education Department, University of Valladolid, Spain

Abstract This autobiographical article shows how the initial teacher´s training plays a crucial role in the reconstruction ofhis professional identity. Over this period, the teacher begins to analyze, observe and reflect on what he does and how he doesit. This study revolves around three key issues: a) the importance of initial training in the quest for a more fully humaneducation; b) the importance of initial training in the quest for coeducation; c) the importance of initial training for teachereducators. The conclusion is clear: a teacher´s professional identity is strongly determined by the initial stages of hisformation, which enable him to build, develop and apply his pedagogical knowledge.

Keywords Class diary. Life history. Teacher Education. Autobiography. Physical Education

1. IntroductionThis study is aimed at describing the process of (re)

building professional identity as a teacher being coveredfrom their Initial Training stage. The reason for choosingsuch stage is that it is the beginning for the teacher to analyse,examine, observe and reflect upon what they do and theirway of doing it. That is, Initial Training is the vehicleallowing the teacher to find out their own identity in a criticaland reflective way (Atkinson, 2004; Graham & Phelps,2003).

To this end, and on the understanding that teachingidentities may be interpreted from a narrative approach(Loughran, 2005; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Søreide, 2006;Watson, 2006), autobiographical research will support theanswer to the question all this study is about: Which is therole of Initial Training in developing teaching professionalidentities?

Not surprisingly, the identity created at such stage andleading to the creation of the professional identitycorroborates that these first approaches to the profession arethe most important ones in shaping the teaching identity(Atkinson, 2004; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Thomas &Beauchamp, 2011). Even in a negative sense, these firstapproaches can lead to dropping out the studies chosen(Hong, 2010).

If we intend to understand something so personal as theteaching identity, we should first get to know the teacher as a

* Corresponding author:[email protected] (Gustavo González-Calvo)Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/sociologyCopyright © 2013 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved

person (Goodson, 2004). In fact, within the educationalsphere, personal and professional identities are inextricablylinked (Beijaard, Verloop, & Vermunt, 2000; Day et al.,2006; Jurasaite, 2005). Furthermore, for an educator theidentity is infused with an exchange between their personalexperiences and the socio-cultural context in which theywork on a daily basis (Cohen, 2008; Nias, 1989; Jurasaite,2005). Nonetheless, before tackling this issue, we feel itwould be appropriate to begin by conceptualising the term‘identity’, since it has various dimensions (personal,

professional, social and cultural) and, therefore, it has beendealt with in different fields (philosophical, psychological,sociological, historical and anthropological) (Bolívar,Domingo, & Fernández, 1998).It is a term holding varioussocial and psychological categories interacting with eachother (Bolívar, 2006, p. 10).

In general terms, the identity is just a set of personal and professional experiences and events shaping a person.


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102 Gustavo González-Calvo et al.: (Re)Construction of a Teacher´s Professional Identityfrom His Initial Training: Autobiographical Narration

“[…] something social, multiple, fragmented,changing, emerging, ambiguous, contradictory,contextual, relational and distributed over timeand space” (Devís & Sparkes, 2004, p. 87).

It is within the teaching field where the educator, whether

a beginner or an experienced one, gradually shapes theiridentity along their working life and around two elements(Bolívar, et al., 1998; Bolívar, Domingo, & Fernández,2001):

1. The professional identity covering those thoughtsone person has about oneself as a teacher and which it isshaped according to a set of dimensions self-esteem,self-image, job satisfaction, tasks’ perception and future

prospects.2. The subjective pedagogical theory covering the full

range of personal opinions, knowledge and values theteacher has towards teaching.

Thus, the identity being developed is “ the set of ways ofbeing and acting shaped by the teacher over their professional life” (Bolívar et al., 1998, p. 189).

According to Caballero (2009), the teaching professionalidentity is built by interlinking several internal and externalfactors, including the following:

1. Internal or personal factors: The most important onesare vocation, teaching conception, knowledge, integrationwith the professional culture, self-concept andself-esteem.

2. External or social factors: The profession’s prestige,the occupational group, the professional recognition and

the interaction with peers.Thus, if the statement that teaching makes sense within

relationships with the others is correct, then the teachingidentity will be built with social interacting places, where theself-image is gradually shaped under the other’s recognition(Bolívar, Fernández, & Molina, 2005; Brewer & Gardner,1996; Dubar, 2002; Taylor, 1996; Veiravé, Ojeda, Núñez, &Delgado, 2006). That is, the teaching identity is not only

built from the most technical aspects of teaching (monitoringof the class, knowledge of subjects, students’ performances)

but it can also:“Be conceptualised as the result of the

interaction between teachers’ personalexperiences and the social, cultural andinstitutional atmosphere where they take place ona daily basis.” (Sleegers y Kelchtermans, 1999, en Day & Gu, 2012, p. 47).

The other elements play a significant role in suchidentity’s shaping (Mead, 1962, en Gilbert, 1997, p. 176),that is, those people who are relevant for the educator andthose whom the educator share an emotional link with.


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American Journal of Sociological Research 2013, 3(4): 101-110 103

short texts with autobiographical content as an analyticalmethodology for his teaching practice where he acts both as aresearcher and the researched subject at the same time. Overthe years, this autobiographical analytical methodology has

become a custom, leading to different researches and to the presentation of his PhD dissertation, where he examines theway teaching identity is gradually shaped.

His life story, both personal and professional, emerged assoon as he approached the classrooms. Since the very

beginning, the prospect of thinking and acting as an educatoractivated a research journey around his prejudices, fears,feelings and expectations. In this way, he began a process ofsubjective reconstruction of his life, taking at the same timeinto account the social context he lived in. An archetype ofteacher that allows us to approach his life and professionaldevelopment and, therefore, to who he is, how his actions,values, choices and ways of understanding education andteaching are and where they come from.

That’s why we are convinced that our chosen teacherconstitutes a significant and illuminating case. Furthermore,his purposeful transparency might also stimulate other(future) teachers to write narratives as a means to (re)construct their lives by revisiting and questioning theirexperiences, teaching acts and decisions. In short, we presenthere a process of self-reconstruction that might help otherteachers to confront and enrich their pedagogical praxis, andto weave a collaborative network of educational narrativesand teacher’s experiences. So, the reason for choosing thiseducator, is that we are confident that he represents whatInitial Training means for the process of rebuilding teaching

professional identity. Instruments

The most used tool for writing autobiographical accountsis the classroom logbooks. According to Zabalza (2008,p.15)logbooks are “the documents where teachers record theirviews about what is taking place in the classroom”.Besides,they are useful as an instrument registering educationalexperiences aimed at being examined and shared afterwards(Smyth, 1991).

There are different authors (Chacón & Chacón, 2006;Liston & Zeichner, 2003; Surbeck, Han, & Moyer, 1991;Zabalza, 2008; Zeichner & Liston, 1999) highlighting

logbooks as a motivating tool for critical and reflective processing, helping to broaden thinking about events taking place in the classroom and allowing teachers to develop theirown actions and ideas regarding teaching-learning processes.

Life story has also been used as a way to collect data. Theyare an “autobiographical account […] aimed at showing the subjective view of someone where both events andassessments of their own experience by such person arecollected” (Pujadas, 1992, p. 47). It means a practicalapproach and it is focused on subjectivity of the eventsexperienced (Hatch & Wisniewski, 1995, en Pascual, 2003):We chose life stories since, according to (Huberman,Thompson, & Weiland, 2000), they are useful for: 1)knowing a professional career and connecting to the teacher

from their present and taking into account their professionalcareer; 2) tracking events subsequent to initial stages of the

professional practice; 3) giving a voice to the experiencesdeveloped by educators 4) knowing at which stage a teacheris in order to arrange a strategy for their training.

Researching processThe daily use of classes as a tool for collecting data is prior

to the PhD dissertation this study is part of. The firstexperience using this tool appeared at the Initial Trainingstage as a PE teacher in 2005. It was sufficient for theeducator to check its usefulness for deepening his teaching,establishing his weaknesses and realigning his teaching fromthe observation and the analysis carried out. In this sense, thelogbook means a training instrument, but also a researchingone, since it is useful for collecting significant data and theirreflection, analysis and systematization.

The educator continues systematically using this

collecting instrument, having a total of three logbookscorresponding to Initial Training (Practicum logbooks), fourcorresponding to teacher of Primary Education, onecorresponding to teacher of Secondary Education andanother one kept as a lecturer at the University (lecturer’slogbook). These nine logbooks total approximately onethousand and eight hundred pages.

The general criterion is registering everything whichseems relevant for improving both his profession and life inschool. In this sense, both the professional identity andlogbooks have been progressively evolved: at the beginning,he was mainly focused on curricular and structural issues ofthe class, while he is now more concerned about personalissues of his students and other issues as an educator, havinga more self-expressive nature. It is increasingly becoming aconstant reference to the students, to what each of them doesand the way they develop, and there are also references to theteacher himself, to how he feels and he acts.

It highlights the daily and individual nature of thesecomments, where the most relevant aspects taking place inthe classroom and in the school are detailed. We would liketo point out that compiling individual data does not mean thattheir analysis is also individual. There is a researchers’triangulation: data have been interpreted and enriched bysharing it among several experts in Teaching PE and

Pedagogy, increasing quality and validity of them byexcluding the bias of a single researcher (Devís & Sparkes,2004; Sparkes, 1993).

Likewise, there has been a triangulation of data (Denzin &Lincoln, 1994) since a different source has been used forinformation: the story of life. From the academic year2009/2010 the leading role decides to improve his reflectiveroutine by means of autobiographical stories under the beliefthat, by remembering and re(building) memories andexperiences, one can deepen certain thoughts in order toaddress them from a different point of view.

This way, the biographical recreation by the subject provides the possibility of giving meaning to his ideas,actions and decisions. The story of life allows him to


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recognise the reason for certain situations by means of thestory created by the leading role who in turn, needs to use areflective practice in order to remember past experienceshighlighting development in a logical order, as well as tointerpret them according to the special features of the present(age, current beliefs, knowledge and expectations).

It is relevant to point out that the information analysis has been carried out in parallel with the research process. Overthe time, different data, accounts, opinions, and narrationsfacilitating and deepening the teacher's experiences have

been collected. This is a common practice in qualitativeresearch (Devís & Sparkes, 2004), where “collecting andanalysing data go together” (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998, p.158).

This type of analysis provides a starting point to arrangeand give meaning to the research. The procedure followed isthe following: 1) we take some ideas as the starting point and,

by elaborating them, there appear emerging issues; 2) wetake a second approach to the texts in order to give meaningto the ideas arising, to interpret them and to know somethingmore about them; 3) we unify the data based on aclassification of information, following an inductive-deductive criterion.

The categories established in the story of life are asfollows: a) memories from the past as a student; b) memoriesabout PE; c) access to the teaching world. Regarding thecategories established in the classes logbook, they arefocused on: a) relationships among the educationalcommunity members; b) the teacher’s self-esteem andthoughts; c) working motivations; d) readjustment of the

teaching-learning process; e) aspects related to valueseducation.

Ethical and required implications

Our research implies dealing with two ethical dilemmas:1) the story of life and logbook provide a lot of informationon the teacher’s beliefs, something that can represent avulnerability issue for him. By acting both as the researcherand the researched subject it is possible to think about ethicaland moral issues of this research study, so that we tried to

produce an honest, consistent and critical text allowing us tounderstand aspects of a life in a close and personal way.Besides, by acting both as the researcher and the researched

subject we get rid of the bias where the researcher is the onlyone obtaining personal benefits and there is a balancedexchange between both (Sparkes, 1994); 2) theseinstruments compile information and interpretation on other

people. Thus, we inevitably start from the principle ofrespect for the other.

Furthermore, long-term collecting information,researchers’ triangulation, checking with participants andverification of structural consistency, among others, doensure the credibility of our work (Guba, 1983). Thecatalytic validity referring to “ the extent the researching process redirects and motivates participants so that theyanalyse and understand reality in order to transform it” (Lather, 1986, en Anderson & Herr, 2007, p. 55) is also met

in our work: by acting both as the researcher and theresearched subject we can ensure that the study means animprovement to the teaching practice.

4. ResultsThree key issues underlying this research have been

established: (a) the importance of the Initial Training insearching for a more human education; (b) the importance ofthe Initial Training in searching for the Co-education; (c) theimportance of the Initial Training for a new professionalstage: University. The reason for choosing suchsubject-matters is that they are the most relevant for theeducator to understand and reconsidering how to (re) buildtheir professional identity and how to understand education.Consequently, they are also the subject-matters shaping theway they are and they wish to be.

4.1. Initial Training Stimulates the Interest in a moreHuman and Socialising EducationIn this particular case, the educator’s personal story is built

from influences coming from his environment (Martínez,2005), affecting his professional identity. As well as theteaching task, from the very beginning, the educator's

personal and emotional involvement is required, which will be developed into his professional identity (O´Connor,2008).

Thus, starting studies in Teaching at the age of 25, partlydetermines his reflective attitude and appetite for learning.This stage and willingness facilitate his concern for

understanding some phenomena influencing theteaching-learning process and, especially, those allowingstudents to take part in. Being imbued with the scientificliterature during his studies in Teaching opens up prospectsfor him in order to understand that, due to the subject weteach, a pedagogical treatment of the body can (and must) be

performed, shaping the kind of teacher we want to be: PE must be useful for something else than just

improving motor patterns. It must also provide the students with the possibility to apply everything theylearn to their daily lives, by thinking and reflectingupon those factors determining motor skills (sport

elitism, sexism in sport, discrimination on the groundsof body and/or skills, etc.)(Practicum Logbook. February 2005).

In my daily work I would like to guide my students sothat they can develop a critical turn of mind that letsthem question the different approaches of our society,defending their own opinions from dialogue andrespect, and choosing among all the possible optionsthose that can benefit them more from an individualand social point of view (Practicum Logbook. March2005).

It is an approach to the reality taking place in a school,during a Practicum, what makes someone realising that PE isnot good or bad in itself, but it depends on the relationships


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among teacher, students and the social context where the profession is developed (García, Puig, &Lagardera, 2002), ashe explains in his own logbook:

At this stage, I could realise that PE can be verydiscriminatory and I became aware of the negative

implications the teacher’s passive attitude meant forthe learning of the schoolchildren (Practicum Logbook. February 2005).

Some disciplinary techniques observed remind me ofthose used in a prison: How can we socialise byexcluding? My first experience as a teacher made meunderstand that I must involve students into the sessions in order to facilitate their learning; that schoolis essentially a socialising space allowing students tolearn how to become responsible persons, and this canonly be possible when they lead their own learning process (Practicum Logbook. March 2005).

Thus, thanks to his Initial Training, this educator becameaware of how school quite frequently reinforces and createssituations facilitating inequality among students (Giroux,2001; McLaren, 1995, 2005). To this day, this situationmeans that most of his efforts are oriented towards trying tofind a more human and socialising education where allstudents are proactively and productively taking part in:

When I ask myself why I am studying and training tobecome a teacher and what the use of what I can do in anear future will be, I come to the conclusion that I willhave to try to establish an atmosphere of trust,understanding and equality that lets all the students speak out and in which each one can feel satisfied and proud of being the way he/she is.. I suppose this is themain interest to which I will have to adjust in my job(Practicum Logbook. March 2005).

Therefore, it is the Initial Training that drives thisnecessary adjustment between his identity building and theeducational values supporting his teaching (Knowles, 2004;Watson, 2005); it is also the reason for the belief that this

profession implies an emotional and caring work towards thestudents (O´Connor, 2008).

4.2. Initial Training and the Search for the Co-educationWe are convinced that the teacher’s attitude towards the

students is key to eradicate sexist and stereotypical behaviours. This can be even more obvious regardingPhysical Education, since it is a subject where the hiddencurriculum is at least as important as the explicit one(Acuña&Simón, 1995). This can demonstrate the importanceof preventing stereotypical behaviours and providingstudents with gender equality environments (Scraton, 1992).

Our educator became aware of all this during his InitialTraining stage by increasingly understanding the essentialconcepts of culture as the engine of the society and,consequently, the school as the social and symbolic spaceincorporating and shaping society (Bourdieu, 1997). At this

stage he started to show his willingness to work on theequality of opportunity and treatment with the class:

I am becoming aware that school is sometimes basedon a strong asymmetry between males and females. Forthis reason, I think that my lessons are more equalnaming boys and girls constantly (…). I believe that Ican be a fairer teacher and everybody will feel moreequal if, from the beginning of my profession, I startrepresenting women inside our language instead ofonly using the masculine genre as neutral. (Practicum Logbook. December 2005).

Having not experienced sexist situations as a student,leading to an inability to understand and to put oneself in theshoes of those who actually experience them (Barbero, 1996;Martínez, 1993) does not mean an obstacle for the teacher tounderstand that the teaching task demands striving forfacilitating a fair atmosphere as well as the social integrationof every schoolchild.This is due to the opportunity provided

by his first approach to the classroom reality as a student:

I observe how relationships established among students provide and lead to discriminatory and sexistbehaviours.. [...] I may tend to reinforce girls morethan boys. It is possible that I encourage them to bemore involved, to take part in the game. What I want isthat they give up the idea that women aren’t fit for physical exercise, although I don’t know if, by doing so, I won’t be despising the attitudes that girls reflect in theclass or underestimating boys. (Practicum Logbook, March 2005).

It is from this Initial Training stage that he is increasinglyconcerned about solving co-education within the classroom

and perceiving real possibilities to intervene on behalf ofgender equality in school:

With the older students, I am working on physicalcapacities and I am observing that girls are morereluctant to this type of contents than boys. (…) I strengthen the idea that girls can be as good as boys inthis kind of tests, I give examples of dome sportswomenwho have become successful in a world reserved to menand, little by little, they become more interested in thelesson (Practicum Logbook, February 2005).

In general, what I have intended to do in my lessonshas been to offer flexible proposals and to work for the sake of all my students, not just for some of them. I havetried to evaluate the process they have followed duringthese weeks I have been their teacher without takinginto account their achievement or quantifying. Thus, Ihave started to realize that I must pay attention and give response to mixed ability inside the classroom(Practicum logbook, March 2005).

This is enabled by the other elements, in this case, hisuniversity professors:

Since I am still in touch with the professors from my Initial Training period, who are concerned about theCo-education issue and equality of opportunity, I can

state that I am more sensitive towards the invisibility frequently surrounding schoolgirls in the Physical


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Education environment when developing my practice;also towards the need to use a non-sexist languagewithin the classroom; and towards carrying out ananalysis from the gender perspective of textbooks […](PracticumLogbook. March 2005).

The Initial Training received in this sense has proven to bekey to the development of the teaching professional identity,since it is reinforced by the fact that ” the set of attitudes,values and roles that students from Initial Training give totheir profession will be subject to a range of changes andtransformations in line with the socialising process taking place in their Initial Training” (Imbernón, 2007, p. 48).Thus, we can corroborate once more how teacher’s workmeans an emotional and personal involvement leading tore(building) teaching professional identity (O´Connor,2008).

4.3. Initial Training and Teaching at a New ProfessionalStage: University Lecturer

There is no need of any specific training to performuniversity teaching in Spain, or rewards which benefit those

professors’ motivation towards an innovative teaching practice (Rodríguez & González-Piñero, 2001. This meansthat the status as a new university teacher requires supportingthe practice by obvious references as well as some guiding ormentoring by other professionals (Bozu, 2010; Doménech,1999; Fernández-Balboa & Muros, 2005; Pascual &Fernández-Balboa, 2005), and it is not sufficient to justsubmit certain academic merits.

Our educator’s stage as a university teacher involvestaking those professors teaching him different courses duringhis Initial Training as references guiding his practice. It istherefore proved how one’s self-identity is shaped accordingto interpersonal relationships and comparisons with

professionalism, change, transformation and development prototypes (Brewer & Gardner, 1996) he is seeking toachieve:

There are some teachers I always have in mind when preparing sessions and carrying them out throughoutmy different educational stages. This is actually morevisible as a university teacher. I take them into accountas well as their way of acting, structuring the subject,explaining the lesson contents […] (Lecturer's Logbook. April 2011).

Even though any teaching professional feel fortunatewhen having such good examples, this can also lead toobvious uncertainties and even give rise to some seriousidentity issues (Esteve, Franco, & Vera, 1995). According toImbernón:

“When the new professor joins a specific teaching situation, they get back to behaviours, attitudes andcustoms from close colleagues, which do not provide further innovation than that of other teachers. Thiscreates real distress, since all that background comesactually from the internalisation experienced by the

other teacher and does not correspond to the new professor's features, and it causes problems inaccommodating and professionalizing the teaching practice” (Imbernón, 1994, p. 46).

These uncertainty feelings are endured at specific

moments during their teaching, particularly during the firststages of the university lecturer’s professional development(Kugel, 1993; Robertson, 1999). They are summarised in thefollowing quotation:

I don’t know whether attempting to do what I've seenothers do, and trying to do it always better than I amable to, represents a constraint for my personal and professional growth. I might try and search for my own style, without leaving aside what I have experiencedand learnt, but trying to find my own way to lead theclasses (Lecturer’s Logbook. April 2011).

The threat to self-identity reflected on the quotation above

showing that university references can limit the self-identitydevelopment as an educator, is overcome whenunderstanding that those same examples were shaping hisreflective and researching capacity during his Initial Training.This idea supports the possibility that sharing experiencesand opinions with other professionals enable the educator to

build his own professional identity and improve his pedagogical practice (Robinson, Anning, & Frost, 2005), asit is shown in his Logbook:

Whilst it is true that most of my professional identitycomes from my former teachers in university andduring my traineeship, I am also aware, because of

them, of the need to get continuous training, to read andto review updated scientific literature, to attend coursesand to take part in innovation projects, […]. This ishow I become the teacher I want to be because I havethe tools to search for myself (Lecturer’s Logbook. April 2011).

The deep footprint by his teachers expressly influence hisway of understanding and developing his teaching. Butespecially, they provide him with the chance to share ideasand experiences with other teaching professionals and theopenness to research and new educational theories in order totry new pedagogical actions. This proves that the Initial

Training stage can be key to (re)building the educator's professional identity (Atkinson, 2004; Jurasaite, 2005;Robinson, Anning, & Frost, 2005; Smith, 2007). This wayand according to Knowles (2009), early teaching models and

prior teaching experiences are crucial in building aself-image as a teacher, and something even more obvious atthis stage as a university lecture.

5. ConclusionsWhen trying to answer the question made at the beginning

(Which is the role of Initial Training in developing teaching professional identities?) and in the light of the results, wecan observe that this is the main reference for the educator at


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an early teaching stage. That is, due to the Initial Trainingreceived the teacher can build, develop and implement hisown pedagogical knowledge. At the same time, this is a stagewhere the passion for this profession is unveiled and aninterest for effectively and responsibly exercising a moreinclusive, human and socialising education arises. Thisintention remains effective over the time, fortifying theteacher’s identity not only from a professional but also froma personal point of view.We can therefore observe that the teacher introduced in this

profession is influenced by the Initial Training received(Atkinson, 2004; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Russell, 1988;Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011), and in this case, the educatorhas received Initial Training he deems appropriate to thelearning he is to teach when he dealing with the

professional reality. This is the reason why we consider thatsome desirable Initial Training suitable to the reality in theclassrooms, does not only soften problematic situations andthe impact suffered when observing reality typical ofinexperienced educators (Eirín, García, & Montero, 2009;Esteve, 1993, 1997; Flores, 2009; Marcelo, 2009a, 2009b;Teixidó, 2009; Veenman, 1988; Vezub, 2007), but also

provides the possibility to rebuild and redirect ideas when becoming more self-aware of their own teaching and their purposes. In other words: the Initial Training enables(re)building and (re)fining their professional identity, so thatthey are better prepared to provide a higher qualityteaching.

In this search, the educator must get back not only toknowledge acquired as a student, but it is also proved that

there are certain relevant models which become their pillarand shape their professional identity to a large extent (Barroset al., 2012; Brewer & Gardner, 1996).

On the other hand, we feel that is important to point outthat it is this Initial Training and models received whatawaken the educator’s interest in registering their thoughtsand experiences in their logbook and story of life. It istherefore proved that professional identities can be built andunderstood from a narrative perspective (Loughran, 2005;Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Søreide, 2006; Watson, 2006). Suchsituation advises that Initial Training means a stage able toraise the awareness of future educators towards their criticalthought and to reawaken a professional identity orientedtowards the sharing of ideas, experiences, new pedagogicalactions and the analysis of their own practice, among others.It means an identity enabling not only new knowledge, butalso the teacher's evolution from the expert educator's role tothe expert trainee (Burn, 2007; Graham & Phelps, 2003).

We have shown an identity evolution influenced by aconstant relationship with building/re-building and

professional exchange, since the education keeps on growingas a person and, consequently, as a teacher (Juraite, 2005;O´Connor, 2008). This is why we cannot forget the fact that

both personal and professional identities, since they areindissolubly linked (Day et al., 2006), “are never completely

acquired and there is always a search for oneself which isexposed to changes and questions”(Dubar, 2002, p. 256).

As we have previously pointed out, we are convinced thatchoosing this case means an illustrative teaching model ofwhat Initial Training is and what it implies in shaping

professional identity during the educator’s first yearsexercising the profession, although we have only representthe educational ideals, reality in the classroom and way ofthinking of a particular person. This situation constrains thetransferability of this research to a greater number of newteachers.

As a future research line, we will try to establish a link between the educator’s professional identity and theirgradual evolution as a human being. The close relationship

between personal and professional aspects within a field liketeaching seems to be relevant when understanding how theteacher evolves with their ideals, values, concerns andrelationships with the students and with the profession itself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe heading of the Acknowledgment section must not be

numbered.SAP Productions wishes to acknowledge all the

contributors for developing and maintaining this template.

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