Teacher Socialization
Theoretical and Practical
Dimensions
http://ncrtl.msu.edu/http/ipapers/html/pdf/ip897.pdf
What is teacher socialization?
TEACHER SOCIALIZATION
The formation of teaching perspectives and
approaches as a result of influence from any
individual, group, or institution; sometimes stated
as the process of becoming a teacher, or
learning to teach.
• Lortie, D. (2002). Schoolteacher: A sociological study (2nd ed.)
“One cannot undo centuries of tradition with a few simple alterations” (p. 230).
Endemic Uncertainties
• Teaching is a complex job that looks easy
“Teaching is a complex job that looks easy.”
• “To a music lover watching a concert from the audience, it would be
easy to believe that a conductor has one of the easiest jobs in the
world. There he stands, waving his arms in time with the music, and
the orchestra produces glorious sounds, to all appearances quite
spontaneously. Hidden from the audience—especially from the
musical novice—are the conductor’s abilities to read and interpret all
of the parts at once, to play several instruments and understand the
capacities of many more, to organize and coordinate all disparate
parts, to motivate and communicate with all of the orchestra
members. In the same way that conducting looks like hand-waving
to the uninitiated, teaching looks simple from the perspective of
students [and others] who see a person talking and listening,
handing out papers, and giving assignments. Invisible in both of
these performances are the many kinds of knowledge, unseen
plans, and backstage moves . . . that allow a teacher to purposefully
move a group of students from one set of understandings and skills
to quite another over the space of many months.”
(Bransford, Darling-Hammond, and LePage, 2005)
Endemic Uncertainties
• Teaching is a complex job that looks easy
• Why is teaching so complex?
• Aim: change the behavior of involuntary clients
• Conditions:
• Isolationism (teaching is a lonely profession)
• Shared Technical Culture is elusive
• Cumulative effects of education
• Inability to measure the effects of teachers
• Contradictory goals of education (public and private)
• Broad-based clientele (students are not our only clients)
Apprenticeship of Observation
Think
Write
Share
1. Think of some of your favorite/least favorite
teachers growing up. List some defining
qualities of those teachers.
Apprenticeship of Observation
from Zeichner & Gore (1990)
• “I definitely will use a lot of different things
like she did.”
• “I don’t want to be like that.”
• “I wanted to do things for children that
were not done for me.”
Apprenticeship of Observation
• By the time a person enters teacher
education, she or he has spend
approximately 13,000 hours observing
teachers.
• Compared to other occupations, education
students have much more opportunity to
form preconceptions about the nature of
teaching.
Apprenticeship of Observation
• Reflexive Conservatism:
– Provides students with a storehouse of practices to
fall back on
• Individualism leads to Narrow Pedagogy:
– Pre-service teachers tend to use themselves as the
model for the students they will encounter
(Grossman, 1991)
• Breaking with personal experience via
Overcorrection
• Hollow Model:
– Provides access to only a limited, passive view of
teaching
• Teacher Education
– Low socialization impact
Apprenticeship of Observation
Critics
• Mewborn and Tyminski (2006)
– Empirical evidence not convincing
• Wideen, Mayer-Smith, and Moon (1998)
– Snark Syndrome
• Richardson and Placier (2001)
– Ecological forces of socialization
Occupational Socialization
Bronfenbrenner’s
Ecological Systems Model
Discussion Questions
• 1. What kinds of changes, if any, do you think
occur in most teachers’ philosophy of teaching
and learning over the course of the formal
teacher education program?
• 2. What factors seem to be associated with
preservice teachers’ ability or inability to reify the
concepts/approaches to teaching and learning
imparted by the university teacher education
program?
Three Paradigms of Teacher
Socialization Research
• Functionalist
– Generally positivistic approach based on rigorous
scientific guidelines; major assumption: schools shape
teachers, who are merely passive “cogs in a machine”;
seeks to explain things “the way they are,” not to
problematize “the way things are or could be”;
• Interpretivist
– Anti-positivistic, complex, humanistic “individual
choices,” seeks to understand socialization as a
phenomenon that is socially constructed
– Accepts the possibility that socialization is not topdown process
• Critical
– Criticizes what is taken for granted, rejects notion of
“socialization”; gender, race and class issues are
central tenets.
Pre-Teacher Education Influences
on Socialization
• Evolutionary Forces (Stephens, 1967)
• Psychoanalytic Forces (Wright, 1959)
• Apprenticeship of Observation (Lortie,
1975)
Christopher Columbus
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•
•
•
•
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
Discovered America
Proved that the world was round
Because of his voyages, American
civilization began to flourish
How sustaining are the effects of
AOO?
• Jordell (1987) posits that the role that
formative life experiences play in
socialization of teachers diminishes over
time.
• Nias (1986) claims that teachers continue
to draw on personal experiences as
students up to 10 years.
Forces in typical pre-service
teacher education
• Core coursework – although increases in cognitive
development, general liberalization of values,
sophistication which student reason about moral issues,
not much is known about how this affects teachers.
• Methods courses – studies show that such coursework
has minimal effect on subsequent actions of teachers.
Many researchers posit that the hidden curriculum in
programs has the most significant effect on teacher
socialization, although the empirical evidence is weak.
• Field Experiences – socializing impact of limited
preservice field experiences is weak and ambiguous.
Different Breeds?
• Lacey (1977):
• 2 broad orientations of teaching candidates
– Professional
• individuals committed to a career as classroom
teachers; identified positively with traditional
schooling experiences
– Radical
• individuals committed primarily to a set of ideals
about social change that might be realized in or
outside of the classroom; identified negatively with
traditional school experiences
PARTING SHOT
If teachers’ apprenticeship of observation
are not consistent with the values
espoused by the teacher education
program or the school, what are the
implications?
Can teacher educators expect teachers to
adopt radical views about teaching and
learning without addressing the
apprenticeship of observation?