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Why become a teacher? Student teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession and motives for career choice
Open accessAbstract
The aim of the study is to discursively identify student teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession early in their education and their motives for this career choice. Students wrote a letter sharing thoughts on why they want to become a teacher, how they regard the teaching profession and if someone inspired them in their career choice. The empirical data consists of 259 student texts from three Swedish teacher education programmes. The study employed a qualitative method denoting different categorizations compared to previous studies, emphasising the idea of multiple motives for career choice and the link to student teachers’ evolving pedagogical identity. Major differences can be distinguished among the programmes, emphasising different main motives and shifting incipient pedagogic identities. The results indicate the value of organising teacher education programmes drawing on multiple motives, which is expected to contribute positively to completion of teacher education and teacher retention in future profession.
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“Many pre-service teachers do, however, experience a vast range of challenges during these immersions into the real world of teaching that leads them to doubt their own skills and even their career choices (Bergmark et al., 2018;Low et al., 2017).”
From Using LEGO® Six Bricks® as an educational resource to address challenges pre-service teachers face during school-based teaching practice (2025) · cites this paper as Bergmark et al., 2018
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Metadata
- Authors
- Bergmark, U., Lundström, S., Manderstedt, L., & Palo, A.
- Affiliations
- Luleå University of Technology (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Bergmark, Ulrika
- Venue
- European Journal of Teacher Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2018-03-07
- Volume
- 41
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 266-281
- ISSN
- 0261-9768 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-5928
- OpenAlex
- W2793516617
- Cited by
- 199
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 4
- FWCI
- 28.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- European Journal of Teacher Education (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Epubl LTU (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Professional Development and Motivation
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Education and Leadership Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- pre-service teachers, career choice, pedagogical identity, teacher education curriculum, teacher retention, student letters
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- Bergmark, U., Lundström, S., Manderstedt, L., & Palo, A. (2018). Why become a teacher? Student teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession and motives for career choice. European Journal of Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2018.1448784
