This article provides the results of a qualitative study, whose main objective is to identify the metaphorical concepts through which teacher candidates believe how teachers are represented by society, and how they represent themselves. The referential framework of this study is given by teacher cognition and conceptual metaphor. A questionnaire was applied to elicit metaphors from 70 teacher candidates at the University of Concepción, Chile. Content analysis was used, following these stages: coding, classification, categorization and scholar review. For the metaphors on how teachers are represented by society through the analysis, the following categories are identified: teacher-centered, student-centered and socially laden. For the metaphors on how student-teachers are represented, the identified categories are: professional formation metaphors, teaching and learning metaphors and social value metaphors. Future work is commented and the relevance of some categories for teacher education is also discussed.

conceptual metaphor; teacher cognition; student-teacher; Chile