This symposium focuses on the professional pedagogical identity development of teachers. It brings together several research paradigms. What unite the three papers is the focus on the development of teachers as active constructors of their professional pedagogical identity, in a reflective and dialogical way. What these papers also combine is the attention for the normative character of the teacher profession and the influence of moral values and their development. And third, these papers analyse the development of teacher in their social context of schools, teacher training and school networks.

Mäkinen, Ropo and Yrjänäinen (University of Tampere) view professional identity development as a process by which somebody develops a personal, social and cultural identity relating to education. Narrative identity is applied since narrative is viewed as a major process by which personal, social and cultural identity develops.  Other approaches to identity development include such as reflective practitioner model (Kolb 1984; Schön 1983) and moral perspective on identity development (Veugelers 2000, 2007). In this study narrative is regarded as a way people express their individual, social, and cultural identities related to school (see Pasupathi & McLean 2010; Fivush, Haden, & Reese 2006).  Purpose of the empirical study was to describe and analyze teachers written and interview stories of their experiences in school. Particularly, we were interested in teachers' narrative identity expressed in the stories and its relations to pedagogical orientations and typical practices in school instruction.

Bourdieu’s habitus concept comprises practices, perceptions and certain regular behaviour without following any explicit rule. It orients human actions without fully determining them. Bourdieu predominantly refers his research on habitus to social milieus with a focus on social classes. Schrittesser and Hofer (University of Viena) apply the habitus concept to the social milieu that is created by different learning environments. It is assumed that learning environments – as for example typically academic ones – affect the creation of a certain habitus. Data on the professional community are collected in a multi-perspective approach based on an ethnographic design: interviews with teacher education students, lesson observation, videos of lessons that students teach in trainings as well as during the induction phase, stimulated recall etc. The research present empirical evidence of how learning communities can affect the formation of such a professional habitus in teacher education.

Moral values are interwoven in all aspects of teaching: in the curriculum, in the school culture, and as moral examples in teachers’ behavior. Educating students to become teachers requires to learn how values are embedded in education, how they themselves, as reflective practitioners, can consciously create moral-based practices in education and what different philosophical, pedagogical and political theories and religious and cultural traditions say about moral development and the role of education. Based on a review of the literature Veugelers (University of Amsterdam/University for Humanistics) distinguishes the following perspectives on moral values in teacher education: value transfer, reflective practitioner, moral sensitivity, participation and dialogue, and moral politics.

To enhance the dialogue in the symposium we will refer in the papers to each other’s work .