Pre-service teacher identity formation and socialisation

Learning to teach is a personal undertaking, which commences well before entry into teacher preparation programs (Groundwater-Smith et al., 2007). Pre-service teachers bring understandings of themselves and others around health and physical activity to physical education teacher education (PETE). These understandings are informed by biographies and experiences in school-based PE, sport and other movement cultures. Over the years occupational socialisation theory (OST) has provided a popular framing for attempting to understand the ‘nature’ of pre-service teachers of PE, their experiences of learning to teach and the practices of PETE (O’Bryant et al., 2000; Richards et al., 2013; Templin & Schemp, 1989).