Professionalization prozesses have been investigated in recent years as development of competencies. Beliefs are considered to be an important aspect of competencies. In teacher research, they are defined as a “person’s understanding of himself and his envi-

ronment” (Fishbein/Ajzen 1975: 131) and investigated with qualitative and quantitative methods (Stern/Staub 2002). In the presented research, a new theoretical approach and methodology – discourse analysis – is used to observe beliefs. They are considererd as positioning in semiotically structured knowledge elements (Harré/Langenhove 1991). Professionalization is processed as transformation of the semiotic structure of knowledge and as changing positioning in these structures.

The self learning environment @rs in the primary teacher education at the university of applied sciences in northwest switzerland provides some insights in these learning and professionalisation processes. It combines a structured set of a-personal learning activities with councelling interviews concerning the learning process and effort placed at significant points of the learning paths.

In the empirical analysis of these counselling settings, it is possible to observe the individual understandings and constructions of content. From a discourse analytical point of view, these different understandings can be called „ways of reading“ („Lesarten“ in german). [positioning] Additionally, learning environments arrange a different governance of readings than traditional settings – the individual readings of learners get related to the readings of counsellors in the interview and this process of relating different readings can be investigated.

The question is, which ways of reading are realized by the students and which types of knowledge are knotted together in these understandings. The question is further how the students position themselves in these readings as professionals.

The theoretical framework for these studies is the theory of social and discoursive practice. Practices are actions or activities that are repeatable, regular, and recognizable in a given cultural context (Kolbe u.a. 2008; Wrana 2008). An important dimension of learning is the cognitive understanding of „things“, so learning is analysed as the discoursive practice of constructing the meaning of things and the positioning as described by the positiong theory in discoursive psychology (Harré/Langenhove 1991). Furthermore, learning as social practise is not just an effect of teaching practices, it is processed by the way, how learners use a specific learning environment.

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