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Critical scholars view schooling as one piece of a larger struggle for democracy and social justice. We investigated 41 school administrators' perceptions about the role and importance of equity, diversity and social justice in new teacher induction in the province of Ontario. Interviews reveal that principals were interested in shaping teacher induction programming in their schools and school districts, but that they regularly prioritized technical issues like classroom management and pedagogy over systemic issues like equity and social justice. When asked directly about equity, principals spoke about learning styles, special needs and differentiated instruction, but they regularly ignored new teachers' abilities to counter systemic oppression--racism, sexism, and classism. Our findings suggest that without an explicit focus on equity and social justice in provincial policy documents, teacher induction programming runs the risk of reproducing a transmission model of new teacher education. (Contains 1 figure and 2 footnotes.)

This article investigates the hidden curriculum of Ontario's New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP). The study involved interviews with 47 teacher educators from eight faculties of education. Responses revealed concerns about (a) who chooses the mentors, (b) the probationary status of new teachers, and (c) the evaluation of new teachers' competence. In the opinion of some teacher educators, the structure of NTIP may discourage new teachers from critiquing the system that employs them thus decreasing the likelihood of their taking a critical democratic stance in their teaching. These findings have implications for any induction or mentorship program for new teachers.