Professional identity has resulted in a discrete research area (Beijaard, 2004). The process to gradually acquiring and articulating a professional identity is crucial in every teacher education program and perhaps more so during the practicum / school placement. Nevertheless, such a The goal of “becoming a teacher” is an ongoing process throughout a teacher’s career, implying that it is ever evolving throughout the lifespan as a teacher / teacher educator. ‘Becoming a teacher / teacher educator’ has its challenges and particularities, all of which are part of a continuum altered by epiphanies that mark individual biographies. The process of ‘becoming a teacher / teacher educator’ presents particularities in physical education such as the marginality of the content knowledge area, the previous and parallel socialization activities of many prospective physical education teachers or the embodied ideology and knowledge they bring to the university as practitioners of specific physical activities and knowledge base in their biography.The construction of a professional identity for physical educators involves negotiating prior knowledge and beliefs, sharing and confronting the idea of physical education and the role of the physical education teacher with other relevant actors, learning to make transitions at a personal and professional level. It remains essential to discuss and debate how the current research knowledge is still relevant for the society we are facing.  Contemporary society is full of changes and challenges related to, for example, the conception of public education, university education, physical activity, personal (multi)identity, that influence how professional identity evolves. In this symposium we revisit this topic from the perspective of different actors, different educational stages, different research approaches and different countries and national educational systems. In doing so, the symposium tries to contribute to link research perspectives that may frequently be seen as discrete from each other.The papers presented focus on the practicum as a milestone where pre-service teachers,, physical educators and physical education teacher educators interests and perspectives sometimes converge and at other times work in opposition to each other. The professional identity of the pre-service teacher as well as those who mentor and supervise them, i.e., physical educators and teacher educators  is at stake during the practicum.