Abstract

Government-funded teacher education in China links financial support, teacher preparation, employment expectations, and post-graduation service obligations. Understanding how pre-service preschool teachers perceive this policy-based pathway is important for explaining their professional identity development; therefore, this study examined how policy satisfaction and perceived teacher support were associated with the professional identity of government-funded pre-service preschool teachers in Chongqing, Southwest China. Based on paper-based questionnaire data from 620 participants, Latent Profile Analysis identified four profiles: Dissatisfied–Low Support, Moderately Satisfied–Moderate Support, Highly Dissatisfied–Low Support, and Highly Satisfied–High Support. Multinomial logistic regression showed that only-child status and age significantly predicted profile membership, and one-way ANOVA and multiple regression further indicated that professional identity differed significantly across profiles, with lower scores observed in the less satisfied and less supported profiles after controlling for demographic covariates. These findings suggest that strengthening policy communication and accessible teacher support may help promote professional identity development among government-funded pre-service preschool teachers.

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