While “beginning teachers typically conceptualise the process of learning to teach as a cumulative acquisition of concrete technical and organizational skills” (McLean 1999, p. 59), it is the development of student teachers’ identity as professionals which is perhaps more critical to successful negotiation of the liminal space between student and professional within which they find themselves during Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs.  This paper presents a study with student teachers, teacher educators and practicing teachers, within the framework of Threshold Concepts (Meyer and Land, 2010), to identify the troublesome knowledge and practices tackled during ITE. 

Threshold Concepts (TCs) have emerged over the last ten years as an innovative metaphor and tool for curriculum design and research with work conducted in higher education settings (Meyer and Land, 2010).  This paper uses the TC paradigm as both a framework for research and for conceptualising the process and outcome of ITE which moves away from competencies and learning outcomes.  TCs are defined as those without which it is not possible to engage in the practices and discourse of a discipline.  Often, these concepts constitute troublesome knowledge that when integrated has a transformational and regenerative effect on the learner, integrating existing knowledge to open up new horizons of thought: 

The TC paradigm offers a framework which is quintessentially integrative, setting a number of key theories in relation to each other which facilitate the generation of insights for the field of professional learning.  In particular, TCs focus on transformative aspects of learning (Mezirow and Taylor 2009), the nature of conceptual change (Carey 1999), specifically adaptive change entailing changes to belief systems (Heifetz, Grashow et al. 2009) and the importance and role of communities of practice in professional learning (Wenger 1998).  The potential for TCs to change not only the learner’s knowledge but also their subjectivity and even identity resonates with work on teacher identity and the role of the self in teacher development (Lipka and Brinthaupt 1999; Day, Sammons et al. 2007).  Furthermore, the conditions of the liminal space within a threshold, in particular the notion of mimicry which ties to Brookfield’s notion of impostorship for beginning teachers (2006, p. 91), is of key importance in exploring professional learning programmes which function as a rite of passage for initiands to a profession (Kiley, 2009). 

Existing work in the area of threshold concepts for professional learning (Atherton, Hadfield et al., 2008; Cove et al., 2008) points at a number of concepts that could be considered as threshold for beginning teachers.  This paper extends the focus by addressing what is the relationship between possible TCs integrated at ITE and the student teachers emerging identity.

The key questions below derive from previous work carried out by the authors on reflective practice at ITE (Devitt et al., 2011):

• What are the threshold concepts underlying good teaching and which can or must be integrated at pre-service?
• Are these TCs similarly perceived by different “stakeholders” in the teaching profession? 
• What are the conditions that facilitate or challenge the integration of these TCs?

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