Teaching Ambition Realized: Paul’s Beginning Music Teacher Identity

The purpose of this particularistic case study was to explore Paul’s teacher identity in his first year as a music educator. I chose Paul purposively because, while a high school senior, he had participated in previous research about teacher socialization. Using Olsen’s sociocultural view of teacher identity as a lens, I examined Paul’s teacher identity including personal beliefs about teaching, how those interacted with professional learning and teacher education experiences, and how Paul made sense of himself as a teacher. Through data analysis I revealed three themes: Becoming Student Focused, Learning to Be Myself as a Teacher, and Taking Ownership. I recommend making preservice and cooperating music teachers more aware of teacher identity models and suggest activities to promote teacher identity development in music teacher education programs. Music teacher educators would benefit from having more teacher identity scholarship focused on music student teachers and beginning music educators.