Rather than conceptualizing teacher thinking as an individual enterprise this book conceives
of teacher thought as a social venture. Through the use of qualitative methods and the theories
of Valentin Volosinov and Mikhail Bakhtin on their respective concepts of ideology and language
two case studies examine how the identities of two first-year early childhood teachers are
fashioned discursively as they move through the contexts of their teacher education programs
the elementary schools in which they teach and personal aspects of their lives. Research
findings illustrate how these first-year teachers pieced together their identities by
appropriating fragments of discourses that circumscribed the various contexts through which
they moved. These particular discourses positioned them in relation to their students and
families and shaped their pedagogy in ways that created opportunities as well as constraints
for the social identities of the children in their care. Monica Miller Marsh illustrates how
the concept of discourse can be used with and by early childhood educators to help them develop
an awareness of the relational nature of identity formation.