The objective of the symposium is to juxtapose case studies from England, Austria and Germany to shed light on professionalization processes of teachers in European migration societies. It highlights how teachers and student teachers who are professionally involved in dealing with social, cultural and linguistic diversity in three different national contexts construct their biographies, and how their life stories and professionalization processes are intertwined. 

The symposium explores how (future) teachers become professionally engaged with questions of identity, diversity and inequality, how experiences of difference and belonging are biographically processed (Chanfrault-Duchet 2004), and how asymmetric societal power relations are professionally reflected (Aneja 2016). On this basis, we aim to discuss how biographies of (future) teachers relate to perspectives of overcoming discrimination and exclusion and how they may contribute to ‘re-connecting communities’. 

Against the backdrop of current developments (including growing social inequalities and the rise of nationalist movements across the globe), issues of diversity, discrimination and social exclusion have gained importance transnationally. As the three papers assemble findings from different biographical research projects in three European countries, the symposium will allow comparative reflections on how (future) teachers’ biographies relate to these societal changes. 

We draw on biographical research methodology (Miller 2005) which focuses on the interpretation of life stories. Life narratives are regarded as a historically and socio-cultural specific practice of representing ‘the self’ in a temporalized narration (Roberts 2002: 4, Plummer 2001). Thus, biographies represent unique and creative processes of (re-) interpreting life experiences, while at the same time they reflect specific socio-cultural contexts and discourses which create specific formats for self-constructions (Dausien 2006).

In the biographical-analytical perspective adopted here, professionalization comes into focus primarily as a process of developing professional identity in the horizon of the life story (Nittel & Seltrecht 2008). From this point of view, professionalization can be regarded as a biographical process of knowledge and identity construction and re-structuring which encloses both experiential knowledge and knowledge acquired in formal qualification processes. It can be described as a "principally unfinished qualification, education and learning process" (Fabel & Wiezorek 2008: 332) which is related to specific socio-cultural and institutional contexts. 

The presentations investigate the interrelation of (future) teachers’ biographies and their professionalization from different theoretical and methodological perspectives. The first presentation uses a post-structuralist approach to investigate language teachers’ personal and professional life trajectories. The second presentation focuses on minoritized student teachers’ life stories and discusses professionalization in the light of nationalism and language ideologies. The third presentation examines professional activism of teachers who can be seen as ‘diversity actors’ and explores the relation between biography, professionalization and institutional change. 

Following the three presentations, the discussant will reflect on the potentials of biographical research approaches for investigating teachers’ professionalization in European migration societies. The symposium closes with an open discussion with the audience.

Aneja, G. A. (2016). (Non)native Speakered: Rethinking (Non)nativeness and Teacher Identity in TESOL Teacher Education. TESOL Q 50 (3): 572–96. doi:10.1002/tesq.315. Chanfrault-Duchet, M. F. (2004). In Quest of Teachers' Professional Identity: the Life Story as a Methodological Tool. In J. Bornat, J., P. Chamberlayne, P. & U. Apitzsch (eds.) Biographical Methods and Professional Practice: An International Perspective. Bristol: Policy Press, 264-83. Dausien, B. (2006). Repräsentation und Konstruktion. Lebensgeschichte und Biographie in der empirischen Geschlechterforschung. In S. Brombach & B. Wahrig (eds.) LebensBilder. Leben und Subjektivität in neueren Ansätzen der Gender Studies. Bielefeld: transcript, 179-211. Fabel-Lamla, M. & Wiezorek, C. (2008). Schulentwicklung im Transformationsprozess - Zum Verhältnis von Biographie und schulischen Reformprozessen. In G. Breidenstein & F. Schütze, F. (eds.) Paradoxien in der Reform der Schule. Ergebnisse qualitativer Sozialforschung. Wiesbaden: VS, 327-345. Miller, R. L. (ed.) 2005. Biographical research methods. 4 volumes. London: Sage. Nittel, D. & A. Seltrecht (2008). Der Pfad der „individuellen Professionalisierung“. Ein Beitrag zur kritisch-konstruktiven erziehungswissenschaftlichen Berufsgruppenforschung. BIOS – Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung, Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen, 1, 124-145. Plummer, K. (2001). Documents of life (2). Invitation to a critical humanism. London: Sage. Roberts, B. (2002). Biographical research. Buckingham: Open University Press.