Research paper How does the learning environment in teacher education cultivate first year student teachers' sense of professional agency in the professional community? Auli Toom a, * , Janne Pietarinen b , Tiina Soini c , Kirsi Pyh € alt € o d, a a Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O.Box 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 5A), 00014, Finland b School of Applied Education and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, P.O.Box 86 (Kuninkaankartanonkatu 5), 57101 Savonlinna, Finland c School of Education, University of Tampere, Åkerlundinkatu 5, FI-33014, Finland d Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, University of Oulu, P.O.Box 2000, 90014, Finland highlights  Student teachers' professional agency consists of complementary components.  Social support, equality, climate and recognition are keys of learning environment.  Learning environment in TE contributes to student teachers' professional agency. article info Article history: Received 14 May 2016 Received in revised form 12 December 2016 Accepted 19 December 2016 Keywords: Student teachers Professional agency Learning Teacher education Learning environment abstract This study investigated Finnish first year student teachers' (N ¼ 244) sense of professional agency in the professional community, their perceptions of teacher education as a learning environment, and the interrelation between these two. Student teacher's professional agency in the professional community consists of motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs of learning, and intentional strategies for promoting school development and student learning. The results showed that student teachers' sense of profes- sional agency in a professional community consisted of the complementary components of utilization of feedback, appreciation of collective efficacy, sense of community, striving for developments, and seeking help actively. As the characteristics of the learning environment, social support, equality, climate and recognition were emphasized. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In order to engage in continuous professional development, carry out pedagogical innovations and enhance student learning, future teachers need to maintain and develop their sense of pro- fessional agency not only in the classroom, but also in their pro- fessional community. Professional agency refers to student teacher's intellectual and behavioral capacity to prepare the grounds for intentional and accountable management of learning in various contexts of teacher's work. It requires motivation to learn, efficacy beliefs of learning, and intentional acts for promoting school development and student learning (Pietarinen, Pyh€ alt€ o, Soini, & Salmela-Aro, 2013; Pyh€ alt€ o, Pietarinen, & Soini 2015). Hence, pro- fessional agency is an integrated concept comprising teacher's cognitive, motivational and attitudinal resources as well as skills and abilities to promote and manage learning in multiple profes- sional contexts, especially in the classroom with pupils and in the professional community. Accordingly, professional agency e as human agency more generally e is continuously constructed and re-constructed depending on the context, object of activity and prior learning experiences (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Greeno, 2006; Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011). * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: auli.toom@helsinki.fi (A. Toom), janne.pietarinen@uef.fi (J. Pietarinen), tiina.soini@uta.fi (T. Soini), kirsi.pyhalto@oulu.fi, kirsi.pyhalto@ helsinki.fi (K. Pyh€ alt€ o). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.12.013 0742-051X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Teaching and Teacher Education 63 (2017) 126e136