When exploring sensitive topics such as preservice teachers' understanding of diversity, our methods might unintentionally suggest what we expect to hear. Documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010; Scheunpflug, et al. 2016) seeks to overcome this issue by focusing not on what the participants are literally saying, but instead on the inherent meanings in their discussions. Following Mannheim (1980), documentary method distinguishes between explicit and implicit forms of knowledge and seeks to bring the latter into daylight. This paper explores preservice teachers’ implicit understanding of the rapidly changing world, and its relation to their profession. Data includes group discussions with 32 Finnish and 35 German preservice teachers, who had participated in courses focusing on culture, culture diversity and change. The discussions were analysed using the documentary method first focusing on how the discussions revealed the participants’ implicit orientations, and then abductively obtaining a typology of their understanding of the changing world and the embedded professionalism as teachers. The study gives in-depth insights into how the students’ worldviews are linked to their views of teaching and learning. The findings are in line with previous research about the interconnectedness of teacher professionalism and values (Cramer & Oser, 2019), however our study provides more precise knowledge about how these dimensions are interconnected, and how they relate to orientations of change. We identified five different types relating to the implicit understandings of the changing world and teaching. Those who trust in the power of education to change the world also show complex thinking about the global world and its relations. Not having fully recognised social change relates to hesitating and inactive patterns of teaching. All teachers react to social change, however not all reactions are in line with a professional self-understanding as a teacher. Similarly spread are the orientations which might be functional considering the immediate teaching needs but at the same time destructive thinking about the purpose of education more broadly. The findings also show that the implicit knowledge does not significantly differ depending on the fields of experiences and or the length of study and that there are no differences between Finnish and German preservice teachers’ orientations. Our findings highlight the need to expand teacher training from what to teach into exploring students’ world views. Global education should not be an additional content to teacher education but part of its core, as it seems to be closely connected to the professional development of preservice teachers.

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