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The focus of this study centres on how emotions are implicated in the processes of early professional practice, among nine beginning elementary teachers in Ireland, during the course of their initial year of workplace practice, post-graduation. Adopting a multiperspectival approach, which locates emotions in the liminal space between the "teacher self" and the sociohistorical structures of schooling, this multiple-case study accounts for the influence of a range of workplace-based relational dynamics on the emotionality characteristic of beginning teaching. Individual, semi-structured interviews and the maintenance of digital diaries (e-mail logs), were the methods of data collection employed. Cross-case analysis identified common patterns that recurred across the nine cases. Empirically-based conclusions are presented and the scholarly significance of the study is outlined.

Located in the Republic of Ireland, and drawing on "figured worlds theory" (Holland et al. 1998), the focus of this paper relates to the shaping of positional identities among a cohort of novice elementary teachers, during their initial year of workplace practice, post-graduation. The concept of "figured worlds" helps make visible how positional identities are shaped in workplace settings. A three-cycle, individual interview design, facilitated continuing contact with each research participant. Utilisation of predetermined "figured worlds"-informed constructs ensures a deductive approach is employed in analysing data. Conclusions encapsulating novices' developing positional identities are presented as per three domains of experience. Conclusions arising from this study assume significance when set in a wider context of conceptually-informed themes relating to novice teaching.