This narrative research explores the tensions that beginning teachers tell about their relationships with students between the ideals they have, and how the teachers experience those relationships in the micropolitical and relational environment of their everyday work. The phenomenon is approached through stories told by three Japanese beginning teachers. The stories illustrate the tensions originating from within oneself, and how they relate to relationships with senior colleagues or the hierarchical relations within the school organisation. The tensions are meaningful for the emotional distance created between the teacher and his/her students. Implications, in particular, for teacher training are considered.

Recent research has acknowledged the importance of the relationships of school principals with beginning teachers. However, little is known about how emotions inform these relationships from the beginning teacher's side. Applying the concept of emotional geographies, this paper explores the kinds of storied emotional distances that appear in the relationships between beginning teachers and their principals. Based on interviews with beginning Japanese teachers, the results indicate that such relationships may be: (1) very direct and personal; (2) acted out indirectly by the principal as personal facilitator 'behind the scenes' or as public gatekeeper; or (3) mediated by the teacher community. The analysis reveals beginning teachers' personal experiences of these relationships, as well as how such relationships are influenced by organisational and cultural context. Although principals are described as distant figures within the school organisation, they are seen to play an important role in facilitating beginning teachers' work by connecting with them at a personal level and providing good working conditions by influencing the emotional atmosphere of the teacher community or by sheltering them from parental pressure.

This article focuses on what student teachers tell about the emotional dimension of their identities with self-portraits. Narrative interviews with self-portraits were conducted with two student teachers in the final stages of their studies. The interviews were analysed by using narrative analysis, followed by a thematic cross-analysis of the two emplotted stories. The findings emphasise the importance of vulnerability as a significant emotional dimension of student teachers' identities, showing them to be vulnerable in relation to themselves, to others and to cultural teacher stories. From the perspective of student teacher identity construction, it was notable that the student teachers described moments of feeling unsuited to being a teacher, which made them feel vulnerable. The article discusses the meaning of self-portraits for research and for teacher education; telling stories with self-portraits can be used to understand the emotional dimension of student teachers' narrative identities.