In this study, we think with theory and adopt a diffractive lens in engaging with student teachers' reflections. The focus is on exploring glowing moments in student teachers' reflective texts, recognising becoming as an ongoing, dynamic process that goes beyond static definition (Massumi, 1992; Rubin, 2022). By asking what might be produced if student teachers embrace the material dimension, particularly a bookcase and children's literature, the research seeks to reimagine teacher education as relational, material, and affective. The following questions took shape during the study: What can thinking-with diffraction and student teachers’ reflections on the bookcase produce and enable in teacher education?  What difference did the literature make for the students’ teacher-becoming? 

The empirical material for this study comprises reflections from early childhood education student teachers enrolled in the blended course "Children’s Literature and Drama" at a university in Finland. We approach the empirical material as diffractive engagements in practice (Murris, 2021) presented as companions for thinking, seeing, and feeling with rather than as representational examples (Vintimilla et al., 2021). The study employs non-representational and postqualitative methodologies to explore the transformative potential of reflections and relationality in teacher training. By approaching reflections diffractively, we discuss the impact of the course on students' reflective practices and explore speculative avenues such as diffractive didactics in teacher education.

The study delves into what might be produced when student teachers reflect on literature, including the theoretical course literature and children’s literature, and practice during a course. We became intrigued by how student teachers engaged with an assignment analysing children's books in the early childhood education centres where they worked. These reflections were part of a blended course designed to accommodate students working full or part-time as early childhood education teachers. As the student teachers interacted with the bookcase, they diffracted their previous professional experiences, highlighting elements in the course that influenced their becoming as teachers, such as literature and spaces for reading.

The inquiry began with a focus on the empirical material—student course reflections. We identified events that made a difference by actively prompting student teachers to consider changes in their practice. Often rooted in humanist assumptions, reflections are commonplace in teacher education, offering students opportunities to engage with personal and professional experiences. However, we argue that such reflections frequently neglect or underestimate the impact of material-discursive dimensions.

Further, this research calls for re-evaluating teacher education practices by incorporating diffractive perspectives and emphasising the material-discursive dimensions that significantly influence the transformative learning experiences of student teachers. The study encourages educators to consider the broader implications of diffractive didactics and to explore the potential of embracing material relations and entanglements in teacher education alongside human relations.

This study adopts a post-qualitative and non-representational approach, aligning with the principles of thinking-with research materials, theories, and collaborative discussions to reimagine teacher education (Jackson & Mazzei, 2013; Murris, 2021; Vannini, 2015). Thinking with the concept of diffraction, we study the transformative potential of student teachers' reflections. Here, diffraction allows us to pay attention to delicate details and differences that matter rather than focusing on coding, categorising, or comparing (Jackson & Mazzei, 2013; Murris & Bozalek, 2019). Diffraction, an optical metaphor introduced by Donna Haraway and developed by Karen Barad (Geerts, 2019), serves as the theoretical framework. For Haraway, diffraction is about making a (material) difference in the world by paying attention to how differences and power materialize. Barad further situated the researcher and research materials in an intimate co-existence by suggesting they are created through one another. To Geerts (2019) diffraction offers ways to reimagine higher education without falling back on either nostalgic humanist assumptions that exclude Otherness and ignore the material realities of students or neoliberal discourses that instrumentalise education and make students actors on a global market, profit-focused, ready to self-develop and forever deemed to prove their worth. Similarly, Taylor (2019) sees diffraction as respecting the relationality of humans and non-humans by offering a holistic approach to the purpose of higher education, fostering creative and meaningful engagements with the knowledge that makes a difference to students. Diffraction invites materialities into the discussion about the purpose of higher education, specifically teacher education. In that sense, diffraction is an approach that constantly moves between ontological, epistemological, and ethico-political implications of humans and non-humans co-existing side by side and together, creating differences that matter (Geerts, 2019). We carefully read the reflective texts multiple times, attending to words, ideas, and thoughts that 'glow' (MacLure, 2013). We also embraced the notion that our ideas about and orientations towards research were inevitably present alongside—and with—us in this process. The non-representational methodology creates opportunities to encounter empirical material as dynamic, fragmented and entangled in unexpected and remarkable ways (Barad, 2007; Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010). By thinking through and engaging with glowing moments, the focus is on the relational and material becoming rather than separate pieces of data (Sheridan et al., 2020).

In this study of students' reflections, we embraced a diffractive lens to understand the dynamic, ongoing process of becoming teachers. We aim to reimagine teacher education as a relational, material, and affective endeavour, focusing on the glowing moments in reflective texts and the influence of literature on the teacher-becoming process. The diffractive engagements and glowing moments discussed in the study offer a potentially novel perspective for thinking, seeing, and feeling with the empirical material rather than relying on representational and prescriptive examples. This shift in perspective allowed us to explore the transformative potential of reflections and delve into speculative realms, contemplating diffractive didactics in teacher education. The study's empirical material, drawn from reflections of early childhood education student teachers, provides insights into the impact of literature on their development as teachers. Here, we emphasise the empirical material's dynamic, fragmented, performative, and entangled nature (Vannini,2015). The assignment involving the analysis of children's books in early childhood education became a diffractive lens through which students could reconsider their previous professional experiences and imagine new ways of reading-with the children rather than to the children. For example, the student teachers sometimes created new relational and material teaching practices involving book-talks, drama (puppets, role-playing, props, scenery) and dramatic effects (sounds, visual prompts, music) connected to the children’s embodied sensations and affects. The bookcase assignment inspired the students to reimagine the spaces for reading-with children and they considered different places indoors (floors, tents, sleeping bags) and outdoors (hammocks, the forest) and unscheduled reading-with sessions that followed the children’s sense of time and spatial choices. By attending to delicate details and differences that matter, the study encourages educators to consider the creative and transformative potential of reflective practices. Through the student teachers' reflections, the bookcase, literature, children, and teachers become reimagined differently through multiple material-discursive entwinements.

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