To study socialization, researchers analyzed open-ended comments from Canadian student teachers, examining their perceptions of the faculty of education. Most comments reflected student teachers' experiences which are interpreted in terms of powerlessness, meaningless, and self-estrangement. Results suggested that organizational conditions…

Discusses a study comparing experiences of Minnesota student teachers working in Texas and in Minnesota, looking for connections between cross-cultural experiences and attitudes toward multicultural teaching. Self-assessment questionnaires indicated that Texas students were willing to demonstrate multicultural competencies whereas Minnesota…

Compares learnings reported by novice teachers in conventional, stateside student teaching assignments and learnings reported by students who did student teaching overseas. Overseas participants acquired more learnings than did their counterparts, exhibited broader perspectives in the content of their learnings, and acknowledged a greater variety…

Describes a study that investigated the use of a computer-generated narrative content analysis procedure to determine preservice elementary education teachers' perspectives during their first field experience. Semantic units were analyzed that expressed concerns about the internship environment and role, classroom management, discrepancies between…

Reports on a study that examined the relationship between supervising teachers' personal attributes and professional backgrounds and student teachers' attitudes toward their field experience. One result was an apparent relationship between the sex of the supervisor and the attitude of the student teacher toward teaching. (SM)

Accounts of the experiences of 22 student teachers completing a final 10-week training practice in secondary schools were obtained through ethnographic interviewing. Developing a sense of belonging to the school's teaching community was a dominant theme. Recognition by teachers as colleagues and confirmation of teacher status by pupils were very…

Describes efforts in a secondary mathematics methods course to make discussions of assessment relevant and accessible for prospective teachers, examining preservice teachers' beliefs regarding assessment and detailing steps to help move them from these initial beliefs to ones more consistent with the philosophy expressed in recent reform.…

Investigated Dutch, Finnish, English, and Greek preservice science teachers' conceptions of and concerns about how to teach the concept of combustion. Participants prepared lessons for junior secondary students, then completed interviews and questionnaires. Results revealed many important and similar characteristics of prospective teachers' views…

Highlights a Canadian preservice educator in a cross- cultural course who worked with student teachers to understand how they encountered one another's diverse attitudes and values, promoting a theory of cross-cultural education that validated experiential interactions as moments of learning. This led to a vision of pluralism where diversity…

Creates a topology of preservice teachers' responses to community-based service learning within several courses, investigating meanings they made from their community experiences. Data came from interviews and student essays and papers. The article considers the potential value of community- based service learning as an aspect of multicultural…

Explored the meanings six preservice elementary teachers constructed about their students with reading difficulties. Information from case studies indicated that each preservice teacher's stance on meaning, while idiosyncratically based on experience, was tied to pedagogy in two distinct ways (focusing on the important role of the supervising…

Two case studies from a Finnish university examined how innovative student teaching practicums and their contexts would affect student teachers' professional knowledge. Data from interviews with students, student reports, and student narratives indicated that the experience made them critically examine their often tacit assumptions and restructure…

Teacher educators can help prepare future educators to teach homosexual students by creating safe environments for homosexual students, providing positive role models, selecting relevant curriculum and activities, providing information and training for faculty, securing relevant library holdings, and conducting research on homosexual students.…

Investigated the major characteristics of the professional development of traditional and nontraditional adult student teachers. Data collection over one academic year included observations, interviews, and autobiographical, critically reflective student teacher journals. Results indicated that the student teaching experiences were markedly…

Examines perceived incompetence within Texas colleges of education, discussing: whether schooling promotes equality; prior analyses of the issue; grade inflation and social promotion; and student teachers' attitudes and curricular preferences. Overall, admissions standards are too low, resulting in marginal teachers who retard students' academic…