The starting point for this paper is a Swedish study with the aim to understand and describe the professional identity development of seven novice primary school teachers of mathematics (Palmér, 2013). These novice teachers work as primary school class teachers, teaching several subjects whereof mathematics is one. This is similar to other countries around the world were most primary school teachers are educated as generalists (Tatto, Lerman & Novotná, 2009).

The teaching profession, with or without focus on mathematics teaching, is often described in terms of a changed profession without much continuity between teacher education and schools (Cooney, 2001; OECD, 2005; Sowder, 2007). Graduating from teacher education and starting to work as a teacher can be understood as a transfer or shift in professional identity where the interplay between the individual and their social environment is a central part about which to develop understanding (McNally, Blake, Corbin & Gray, 2008). In the here presented study this understanding is developed through investigating the novice teachers’ participation and reification in different communities of practice (Wenger 1998).

According to Wenger (1998) identity development is to be understood as the negotiated experience of self in the learning trajectory within and between communities of practice. A community of practice is defined through the three dimensions of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. Mutual engagement is the relationships between the members, about them doing things together as well as negotiating the meaning within the community of practice. Joint enterprise regards the mutual accountability the members feel in relation to the community of practice and it is built by the mutual engagement. The shared repertoire in a community of practice regards its collective stories, artifacts, notions and actions as reifications of the mutual engagement.

An individual can participate in communities of practice trough engagement, imagination and/or alignment. Engagement implies active involvement and requires the possibility to physical participation in activities. Imagination implies going beyond time and space in physical sense and create images of the world and makes it possible to feel connected even to people we have never met but that in some way match our own patterns of actions. Participation through alignment implies that the individual change, align, in relation to the community of practice the individual wants to, or is forced to, be a member of. All three kinds of memberships are constantly changing and learning trajectories in communities of practice can be peripheral, inbound, inside, on the boundary or outbound (Wenger, 1998).

At the time of their graduation the novice teachers in the here presented study expressed a wish to change the mathematics teaching in schools. In their teacher education they had experienced a new way to teach mathematics in line with what is often named as the reform (Ross, McDougall & Hogaboam-Gray, 2002; NCTM, 1991 & 2000). This is similar to what several other studies have shown (for example Bjerneby Häll, 2006; Cooney, 2001; Sowder, 2007) However, the novice teachers also expressed several limitations they thought would prevent them from succeeding with their desired changes. In this paper especially one of those limitations will be focused on, namely practicing teachers. At the time of their graduation the novice teachers express that practicing teachers probably will limit their possibilities to change mathematics teaching in a reformative direction since practicing teachers want to keep on to the traditions. In this paper it will be described, based on the novice teachers’ memberships and learning trajectories in communities of practice, how they deal with this expected limitation during the two years after their graduation and how it influences their professional identity development.

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