Student teacher identity formation in early childhood education: A cultural-historical activity theory perspective

Abstract

This study tracks the development of six student teachers during their one-year enrolment in a Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Early Childhood Education). The six students originate from China, Hong Kong and South Korea: societies which have a strong Confucian-heritage culture with an educational tradition of top-down transmission forms of teaching and learning. Using cultural-historical activity theory, this qualitative case study examines the phenomena of student teacher identity development. In this study, I conceptualise the learner as actively participating in two distinct, yet overlapping, activity systems. In this study, the formation of identity is considered an ongoing developmental process of individual negotiation and collaborative meaning making. Identity develops as a result of the student teacher negotiating understanding of self through participating in the collective social practices that contribute to achieve the goals of the early childhood setting. In some cases, the student teachers expressed ideals and hopes of a more progressive and ethical form of teaching, which they were able to implement. This study draws on contemporary cultural-historical concepts that seek to explain both the influence of a range of settings and the role of emotions and subjectivity in the appropriation of identity by student teachers. Cultural-historical activity theory holds that identity must come from outside the individual, through the individual’s engagement with self, others and the context of development. In this study, it is claimed that, true to cultural-historical activity theory and theories of expansive learning, the subject-object relationship is bidirectional in influence, meaning the subject not only acts upon the object, but the object acts on or prompts changes in the subject, which then changes the character of the object. Through the realisation of contradictions within and across activity systems, new objects are generated. Drawing on the data and extrapolating key themes, collaboration and ethical practices are at the heart of early childhood teaching and learning. Furthermore, that culturally and linguistically diverse students are not only being changed by their involvement in early childhood teaching, but also, as a collective, they are responsible for shifts in the sector as a result of their purposeful, collaborative, and ethical efforts.