Scholars report desirable outcomes for all participants in classrooms where diverse learners are welcomed members. Data suggest teachers leave the profession early because of the demands of their work made increasingly difficult by the diverse range of students, lack of assistance to support the diverse range of student needs and the resulting burnout. This paper presents qualitative data from six beginning teachers, juxtaposed with the author's personal narrative, to illustrate the ongoing problems beginning teachers face, contending with political, historical and cultural barriers when teaching students with diverse learning needs. Despite policy advances and mandated courses in inclusive education in initial teacher education, beginning teachers are overwhelmed by the magnitude of teaching diverse learners in contemporary classrooms. Of note in the data are the preservice teachers' fluid conceptions of inclusive education. The polarity of success and failure of inclusive education is re-envisaged through Deleuze and Guattari's [(1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.] rhizome. The data illustrate the challenges and messiness of learning to become an inclusive educator. It is important to listen to the experiences of beginning teachers given the value of supportive classroom environments for students with diverse needs and the impact creating these environments has on beginning teachers' longevity in the profession.

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Preservice teachers enter university with a range of personally held beliefs related to inclusive education and themselves as educators. This article reports on one case study from a larger qualitative research project. The study examined a preservice teacher’s perceptions of herself as an inclusive educator as she approached the final year of her undergraduate degree. Data included a metaphorical representation of being an inclusive educator, and two semi-structured interviews held 6 months apart. The use of collage and a structured written response completed the data set. Evelein and Korthagen’s model of core reflection and Voice-Centred Relational Method were used to analyze the data. Analysis exposed the dissonance between the layers that separate the preservice teacher’s core qualities and the environment. Data are presented using I-poems and discussed using the emerging themes. The consequences for her emerging identity as an inclusive educator and sense of belonging in the profession are discussed.

Although prevalently focused on research-based outcomes (i.e. better understanding of a particular phenomenon, process or experience), arts-based researchers have widely emphasised the transformational potentialities of arts for individuals. In particular, the arts create space for thinking differently and provide opportunities to explore intuitive and emotionally connected ideas that do not rely on words alone. The arts are powerful instruments to activate individual and collective reflection, creativity and ability to approach life situations from different perspectives. Thus, arts are particularly powerful to promote the creative and transformational processes that are essential for professional identity development, including reflection and reflexivity on self. In this paper we aim at conceptualising the high potential of art-based research, as a creative process, for teachers’ identity development. Based on a systematic scientific literature analysis we intend to map the different ways arts can be used to support teachers’ professional identity development while clarifying which transformational and learning processes are involved.

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The first year at university is always challenging, but particularly in 2020 when COVID-19 triggered lockdowns and a rapid shift to online learning. This mixed methods study tracked the wellbeing and engagement of 60 new students in an undergraduate teacher education program at an Australian university throughout the first trimester of 2020. Follow-up focus groups with 14 students used interview and photo elicitation to explore how COVID-19 influenced wellbeing and engagement. Quantitative results demonstrate both student wellbeing and student engagement dipped strongly at the start of lockdown but recovered towards the end of the trimester. Focus group findings illustrate the diversity of experience in terms of student access to time and space to study, their ability to sustain relationships online, and the cumulative stress of COVID-19. The findings lead to recommendations for supporting this cohort and for future research.

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