The expectations-reality dissonance in student teaching: a discourse analysis of one pre-service teacher’s perspective

Abstract Student teaching has been conceptualized as an experience that translates into ample teaching practice and meaningful teacher knowledge. Such a conceptualization misses issues that emerge from student teaching as social practice (i.e., the distinctive ways people engage in activities associated with a particular domain of knowledge in a specific social context). Using interview data from a larger qualitative study that investigated pre-service teachers’ learning experiences, I conducted a discourse analysis of Lany’s perspective on her student teaching experience. Unlike other student teachers, Lany perceived the social practices at her placement to be unjust, holding student teaching with contempt and wanting it shortened. Findings indicated an expectations-reality dissonance in student teaching and the reproduction of socially constructed school norms and unequal social relations between school personnel and Lany. These constrained Lany’s abilities to practice teaching and shaped her identities. The study sheds light on the need for teacher educators and other tangential agents to more actively advocate for those who are apprenticing teachers to ensure quality education.