The question of what professionalism and professionalisation is has been explored in numerous studies without consenting on what constitutes ‘a good teacher’ (Korthagen 2004, Goodson and Hargreaves 1996). The relationship between profession and person is generally overlooked in the literature on professions, which often become examined in societal perspectives and as collective issues (Hjort and Weber 2004).

Drawing on literature about professionalism (Järvinen and Mik-Meyer 2012), person-related (McAdams and Pals 2006), narrative (Bruner 1990) and critical cultural (Hundeide 2005, Dreier 2009) psychology, this study explores how teaching professionals and their professional becoming through teacher education and schoolwork may be understood in diverse and more personal ways. The critical/narrative theoretical approach will place professionalisation and personal narratives in contexts, where persons are perceived as participants in social practice structures that construct narratives as meaningful wholes in complex realities.

Analysing and socioculturally comparing (Melhuus 2002) the narratives of two teachers through a realistic and nuanced concept of the person that includes multiple layers and perspectives from an integrative science of personality (McAdams and Pals 2006), make it possible to view teacher professionalism as something that is also borne by the personal, leading to a more precise and thus novel understanding of what teacher professionalism is.

Bruner, J. 1990. Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press.

Dreier, O. 1999. Personal Trajectories of Participation across Contexts of Social Practice. Outlines:5-32.

Hundeide, K. 2005. Socio-Cultural Tracks of Development. Cultural Psychology, 11(2):241-261.

McAdams, D.P. and Pals, J.L. 2006. A New Big Five. American Psychologist, 61(3):204-217.