Stories of self and science: preservice elementary teachers' identity work through time and across contexts

Grounded in theoretical and empirical underpinnings related to identity work and figured worlds, this case study explores the nature of two preservice elementary teachers' identities for science teaching and the experiences that impacted their development through time and across contexts. The participants in this study portray a range of competencies, interests and orientations to science and science teaching, and hence provide two different kinds of, almost contradicting, identity works. Various data were collected in a period of 3 years with the use of life history methods in order to trace the participants' identity work over time and across contexts. The analysis of the data showed prevalent differences between the participants' identity works and identified critical events and experiences in the context of various figured worlds: (a) figured world of family; (b) figured world of childhood; (c) figured world of schooling; (d) outside of school figured worlds; (e) figured world of university and (f) figured world of science. These findings are offered alongside implications for future research and teacher preparation.