Are the Effects of University Teacher Education 'Washed Out' by School Experience?

The question of the relative impact of colleges and universities on the one hand and public schools on the other hand with regard to the socialization of teachers has received a great deal of attention in the literature of teacher education both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. As a result of a plethora of studies related to this question, it now has become commonly accepted within the teacher education community that students become increasingly more progressive or liberal in their attitudes towards education during their stay at the university and then shift to opposing and more traditional views as they move into student teaching and inservice experience (Zeichner, 1980). This progressive-traditional shift in professional perspectives is assumed to be a result of students being caught between the conflicting demands exerted by the schools and universities. According to this view, the university or college is absolved from any responsibility in the development of the traditional perspectives that eventually emerge, and the major source of socialization influence is the schools (Fuller & Bown, 1975). Given the highly consistent results of numerous longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of education students and teachers at various points in their professional careers, this view seems highly plausible. However, a number of investigators both in the United States and the United Kingdom have recently begun to raise many questions about it. This paper will summarize the evidence related to three different interpretations of the data on college and school impact on the socialization of teachers, and will discuss the implications of these interpretations for practice in teacher education and for research on the processes of occupational socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]