What Does Teaching Do to Teachers?

Studies of people-processing organizations invariably concentrate on the clients of such organizations. It is equally interesting to consider the staff of these organizations. Does working in such an organization re shape the ideologies and attitudes of the staff? Should we pay more at tention to the process of socialization of "those who socialize"? This ar ticle reports a longitudinal study that monitored a group of Australian secondary teachers from their final year of training into their initial year of teaching. It replicates previous studies in North America and England that employed the Pupil Control Ideology Form and other measures of teachers' attitudes toward pupils to examine the phenomenon of begin ning teacher socialization. The results of the study confirm in an Austra lian context the general thrust of earlier studies: that beginning teachers experience an ideological shift from idealism to realism during their ini tial teaching experience.

John T. McArthur is Head of Area of Educational Administration, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.