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This article explores the circumstances in which individuals become secondary school teachers in England and France. Using a social constructivist theoretical framework, it specifically considers how national contexts play out in this decision. The findings presented in this paper draw on a corpus of 60 interviews with a sample of teachers based in English and French secondary schools. They show that national frameworks remain relevant to an exploration of teachers’ identities and cultures, as French and English interviewees draw on distinctive reasons to explain why they became secondary school teachers. While becoming a teacher is often thought of as a ‘vocation’ or as the result of ‘intrinsic’ factors, this paper highlights the role of national contexts, as well as of gender and social class, in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]