Om lärarblivande: En livsvärldsfenomenologisk studie av bildningsgångar in i läraryrket

Abstract in English

The purpose of this study is to understand and visualize the prospective teachers ’ educational trajectories into the profession. The theoretical framework is life-world phenomenological and the method is narrative. The participants were interviewed first as student teachers and then, eight years later, when working as teachers, apart from two students who not work as teachers. In total, 14 life stories were gathered. The participants chose to share the rich and profound stories of their experiences as students and later as teachers, or about the time after their education. The theoretical framework is mainly existential and phenomenological and emanates primarily from Maurice Merleau-Ponty. His philosophy lived body has been fruitful as analysis concepts and he argued that our lived body is our lived existence and that a change in the body is a change in the existence. ”Stories to live by” is important stories that teachers must relate to. If ”stories to live by” cannot be lived with, the teacher is forced to act, either by accepting or assimilate to, for example, the school’s ”stories to live by” or by quitting as a teacher. ”Stories to live by” is of great importance for the participants ’ training time in this study. Many times, the stories reveal how participants are forced into action when ”stories to live by” are not possible to live with. Lived body, lived human relationships, lived time and lived room are existentials which works as lenses to understand the becoming of a teacher as an existential matter. One result from the stories is a so-called normative condition in where teacher training and teacher role in times must follow the fixed standards. Through three major reforms of teacher education for the last 30 years, the perception of professionalism is presented as an important starting point for how teacher education constitutes the contemporary perception of the image of the teacher. Emerging, finally, are contours of five educational trajectories with different properties: a normative trajectory, an unhealthy trajectory, an emotional trajectory, an ambitious trajectory and a misleading trajectory. The students probably move in several educational trajectories at the same time. To understand the becoming of a teacher can be to understand the lived perspective. It can also be to understand that the becoming of a teacher is done in existential terms and that teacher training and school should pro-vide space for life.