Development of Student Habitus in Teacher Education for Elementary School as Part of Teacher Professionalization?

• Applicant: Dr. Mei-Ling Liu
• Subject Area: Educational Research on Socialization, Welfare and Professionalism
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 528853156

It is debatable, how significant is teacher education for teacher professionalization. There are hardly any longitudinal studies that research the development of student habitus related to teacher professionalization. This longitudinal project would make a substantial contribution to the debate and research gap. It aims at a reconstruction and sense-genetic type formation of the habitus of teacher students for primary schools and its development in respect of the requirements of their study and the anticipated requirements of the teaching profession in the future at two universities, the concepts, and didactics of which for teacher education to each other are different. Beyond that, this study observes the professionalization tendencies of student habitus. Secondly, this study intends to find the relationship between the development of study-related habitual dispositions and the development of habitual dispositions related to the teaching profession. Thirdly, this project tends to observe and identify the sense and interpretation of student habitus regarding the program of teacher education at each selected university. Ultimately, this study targets an empirically founded theorization about the development of student habitus as part of the genesis of (professional) teacher habitus. To achieve these goals, a longitudinal analysis of the autobiographical narrative student interviews on habitus development is the focus in the first instance, which is realized by means of sequence-analytical habitus reconstruction and by comparing the results at the beginning of the study and at the end of the second year of study. Beyond that, a cross-case, sense-genetic type formation of the student habitus and its development and a cross-case relational type formation between two dimensions of the student habitus will take place. To be able to consider the perceptions and interpretations of student teachers for primary schools regarding the teacher education program, a content analysis and determination of the teacher training program is additionally to be carried out, which uses documents and expert interviews at the respective university location. This content analysis serves as a comparison with the perceptions and interpretations of student teachers. From the empirical results, there is a heuristic theorization of the development of student habitus in the study of teacher education regarding the genesis and development of (professional) teacher habitus to be generated. The expected theorization goes beyond the theoretical framework – habitual, structural, and (occupational) biographical profession theories.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants