Bookshelves of our lives: Pre-Service teachers’ meaningful life stories nurturing identities and professional development

This article explores pre-service teachers' (PST) life stories in the context of identities and professional development. Reflecting on meaningful life experiences can support teachers' identity work and holistic professional development, but research on PSTs' life stories is limited. This study aimed to explore the “what and how” in the life stories. Conducted in a master's-level teacher education course at a Finnish university, narrative data from 152 PSTs were collected. The analysis began by creating narrative themes and defining genres of the dataset, after which 25 stories were analyzed in terms of narrative choices. The findings show the versatility of the data, covering various genres and narrative themes including current topics such as becoming a teacher and health and well-being. Narrative choices in the stories brought out and highlighted reflections on identities. The study underscores the potential of storytelling as means for exploring and supporting PST's identities. • Study explores pre-service teachers' life stories and identity formation. • Narrative analysis reveals themes from various life stages to teacher identity. • Findings show reflection supports holistic professional development. • Narrative identities shape teacher growth and arts-based reflection is encouraged.