In this large-scale qualitative study, we use an emergent design to explore pre-service teachers’ (PST) motivations to enter the profession. We open-code 2,798 PSTs responses to the directive, ‘Explain why you decided to become a teacher’, given over the course of a six-year period from one large Texas teacher preparation programme. Using constant comparative analysis, we identified three categories of motivation into the teaching profession: altruism, intrinsic motivation, and socialization influences. Each of these explain why PSTs were motivated—to, by, and from—entering the profession, respectively. However, descriptions of each category differed from findings in previous research, as our study addresses methodological, contextual, and conceptual gaps that have persisted throughout this field. Findings offer implications for increasing the teacher pipeline through targeted recruitment and increased informal teaching experiences.

While qualitative research has been among the more open of academic disciplines, processes for analyzing qualitative data have remained dogmatic. Most qualitative data are “coded” by breaking it into pieces of information that stand alone or through contextualizing it as researchers see fit. Data analysis thus remains a process of deconstructing participant voices and reconstructing stories through sound bites, creating an acceptable form of “fake news” to obtain a seat at the research high table. This continues established traditions of denying “subalterns,” already less agentive in higher education spheres, the ability to speak as the voice of the participant is subjugated to the discourse community of the master. In this paper, we demonstrate how protocols for analyzing qualitative data represent the master’s voice as they draw from Euro-Western ways of knowing the world. Possibilities that foreground indigenous and critical epistemologies are presented as alternatives.

This study explored teacher candidates’ understandings of diversity, equity, and equality, and how these beliefs differed throughout teacher preparation. Researchers surveyed teacher candidates at the beginning and at the completion of their program to compare responses to a question inquiring about student demographics in the context of literacy education. Researchers found that teacher candidates’ understandings of effective literacy instruction ranged within a continuum between stances of equity and equality, and that exiting candidates’ responses were more robust and descriptive. Implications include the need for a focus on multicultural education across teacher education programs to yield more equity based beliefs.

This mixed methods study investigates novice teacher and coach survey responses from a two-year induction programme to learn more about what makes a good match. We qualitatively analyse comments from all novice teachers and coaches who were paired across years and find shared themes of structural, professional, and personality similarities as well as the importance of coaching support prominent throughout novice teacher responses. We also use logistic regression to indicate that novice teachers’ ratings of coaching skills and coaches’ beliefs about the induction programme fitting within vertical professional development were positive and significant predictors of perceptions of being well matched. Findings have implications for induction programmes on how to match their coaches with novice teachers to enhance teacher development.

Our study explored preservice teacher beliefs about enacting culturally relevant literacy instructions in their future classrooms. We surveyed PSTs from one teacher education programme across three cohorts, with one cohort completing both pre- and post-survey responses. Engaging in constant comparative analysis of PSTs’ beliefs about the intersection of student diversity and literacy instruction revealed perspectives along a continuum between equity and equality. These beliefs were further categorised into five profiles: (1) Colorblind; (2) Other Factors Matter; (3) Deficit-Framed Diversity; (4) Academic Success; and (5) Cultural Competence. Results also suggest a general shift of PST beliefs over the course of the teacher education programme towards more culturally competent stances, pointing to a primary implication that teacher preparation can support collective development towards cultural awareness.