“When you get out there, you don't have a toolbox”. A comparative study of student teacher's identity development in Swedish and Danish teacher education

This study explores student teachers’ development of professional identity in two teacher education programmes in Sweden and Denmark. Interviews were conducted with ten students in a comparative case study. Data were analysed by employing conceptual approaches of hermeneutic phenomenology and identity trajectories. The results indicate that student teachers attribute professional identity development to teacher education to a limited extent. Despite the different organization of Danish and Swedish teacher education, informants from both settings interpret the qualities of a good teacher mostly through personal beliefs and previous experiences, and refer to ethnicity, social segregation, and discrimination in characterizing themselves as teachers. •Students in teacher education interpret professional identity through personal characteristics and past experiences.•Students hold on to initial understandings in identifying as teacher throughout teacher education.•Teacher education provides students with little opportunity to reflect upon the development of teacher identity.•Ethnicity is an essential characteristic that stands out in identifying as a future teacher.