What kind of self is being made available and denied to student teachers as they participate in life in their teaching practice schools? In addressing this question empirically, the article seeks to show the forms of meaning being made and experienced by student teachers and the identities that are authored, authorised and constrained. A sociocultural perspective on professional learning, with its emphasis on participation agency and identity, illuminates aspects of the process of becoming a teacher and highlights the tension that is there for students within available meanings. Having to opt to be a teacher at the expense of a learner identity constrains what is available to be appropriated in professional settings with potential consequences for how beginner teachers frame themselves, their learners and their colleagues.