Tuned In: How novice teachers navigate personal, professional, and political influences

The purpose of this study was to begin to unlock how novice teachers navigate the tensions between their personal beliefs and those demonstrated or experienced through interactions with people and their environment. It should be of particular interest to administrators, schools, and teacher education programs that seek to support novice teachers. This study examines novice teachers' identity as seen through the stories they tell about their experiences to answer the research questions: How do new teachers interact with the stories of teaching and teaching identities? How do they embody, refuse (act against), or disregard (ignore) stories of teaching and teaching identities? What stories or experiences are shared by novice teachers?

Through art, interviews, and a story circle, six participants shared stories about what it means to them to be a teacher. My participants' stories offer clues as to how we can think about novice teacher identity formation and how these novice teachers navigate a complex educational landscape. I addressed the themes found across participants as well as an outlier in my analysis. I found you control the narrative, your voice matters, keep the main thing the main thing, and we get by with a little help from our friends as the primary themes seen across the six cases. I see you, explored a theme found in two cases that stood out as important to how they consider narratives of teaching. The implications of this study are valuable to novice teachers, teacher preparation programs, districts, and school administration.