International teacher education programme as a narrative space for teacher identity reconstruction

Abstract

The paper investigates the processes related to professional identity reconstruction in the context of an International Teacher Education Programme (ITP). It focuses on how participating Indonesian teachers in a Finnish master's degree programme described their experiences and what kind of positioning processes found in the participants' narratives. Findings suggest that participants constructed ‘Birland’, as a narrative space representing ITP that includes Indonesian and Finnish education. Constructed narratively, this space offers novel options for repositioning as teachers. This supports the theoretical assumption that professional identity reconstruction is mediated by the subjective construction of narrative spaces which enable identity repositioning and knowledge acquisition.