Fiction as the "first laboratory of moral judgment": Pre-service Teachers and the Development of a Professional Identity"

This chapter examines the relationship between reading fictional narratives and students' development of their professional identities as teachers. Paul Ricoeur (1994) argues that literature functions as a laboratory where we experiment with judgments of approval and condemnation; when reading narratives, we come to grips with our own identities and values by creating our own life stories, inspired by literature and drawing on literary elements. I examine 86 teacher trainee reading logs where students respond to Anglo-Indian writer Bali Rai's teenage novel (Un)arranged Marriage (2001). Students commented on dysfunctional families, arranged marriages, the importance of education, racism and the intolerance of difference, contrasting their own experiences with those of the protagonist. The moral judgments they make in their logs suggest that they have become more aware of their own identities and development as future teachers.