A conversation about preservice teacher professional identities within initial teacher education spaces and places

The article opens a conversation about specificities and complexities of the positioning and identity constructions of early childhood (ECE) preservice teachers within initial teacher education (ITE) spaces and places. It draws on a study on if/how ITE can support preservice teachers to build a critical mentality to engage with robust professional discourses (e.g., social justice, inclusion) and construe themselves as advocate–activists for a socially just, equitable, and inclusive ECE and world. Research findings pose questions about the possibilities and challenges of ITE in creating spaces for teaching graduates to strengthen capacities not only to speak on behalf of self and others from within existing political and socioeconomic frameworks in ECE (i.e., to act as advocates), but, more importantly, to challenge and resist power bases underpinning these frameworks (i.e., activism) and envisage a more equitable and just ECE and the world