This study investigated how undergraduate students make meaning from instances of cultural conflict within juvenile novels. Student logs, discussion groups, postwriting, and classroom observations indicated that the case method had strengths and weaknesses, but overall, it encouraged reflection on critical issues. (SM)

Presents a hypothetical story about gender and science teacher education. The story is a composite of many student teachers' bias dilemmas. It shows that teachers' personal teaching styles reinforce student teachers' gender-biased educational experiences. Notes that preservice, cooperating, and university teachers must recognize and address…

Compares the impact of two types of early field experiences on prospective teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and dialect-speaking elementary school children. Assesses student teachers' perceived helpfulness of field-based experiences, theoretical orientation for reading instruction, and attitudes toward dialect speakers. Advocates an immersion-type…

This study examined relationships between hardiness and school climate in contributing to student teacher alienation. Survey results from 106 student teachers indicated that hardiness significantly affected alienation. Alienation levels of high-hardy students decreased in more supportive school climates. Low-hardy students increased in alienation…

The University of New England (Australia) conducts annual professional experience visits to remote rural areas in Papua New Guinea for trainee teachers and staff. This article examines changes in student teachers' perceptions after experiencing a culture and environment so different from their own. Surveys have indicated that students…

Describes an international teacher education project, the Regina-Yaounde Inter-University Project, as one approach to the development of global consciousness in student teachers. The stories of two of the student participants (from Cameroon and Canada) in the student exchange component illustrate the impact of the experience on their professional…

An educator reflects on preservice teachers in his class who were concerned with issues of interpersonal relations and classroom dynamics but not with socioeconomic, intercultural, and political contexts of education. Nevertheless, there were some faculty and students involved in urban schools bringing reconstructionist ideas of education for…

This study examined how 47 student teachers described instructional successes and failures. Interviews identified seven elements of success or failure (student characteristics, implementation, planning, lesson uniqueness, management, student teacher characteristics, and lesson content). Their perceptions of teacher and student role in success or…

Describes a partnership between a university and an urban school district in which university students completed a one-year immersion internship in urban schools that included students with diverse linguistic, cultural, and learning needs. Surveys of the interns, mentors, principals, and university supervisors indicated that the program was…

Explored the role of a university supervisor with the student teacher and the cooperating teacher, noting the supervisor's perceptions of her place in the university and the public school. Data from interviews, field notes, and conferences indicated the complexity of the supervisor's position in the traditional model of student teaching with…

Investigated how Mexican-American student teachers expressed their cultural knowledge in lesson planning and implementation. Semistructured interviews with Mexican-American student teachers working in elementary Professional Development Schools revealed little ethnic expression, even when teaching Mexican-American children. They were never invited…

Examined general and special-education student teachers' and cooperating teachers' perceptions of the importance, and use of, various instructional strategies needed in diverse and inclusive classrooms. Surveys ranked 45 instructional strategies on actual use and from most to least important. Results indicated an overall agreement among groups…

Describes one university's club for male elementary student teachers designed to reduce high wastage rates. Field notes, interviews, and surveys of club members and nonmembers indicated that students with relevant work experience, with realistic expectations for primary teaching, and who selected elementary teaching as a career were the most…

Surveyed male and female preservice elementary teachers regarding factors influencing their decisions to become teachers. Females were motivated by perceived intrinsic aspects of elementary teaching but emphasized perceived extrinsic aspects. Males were aware of the feminization of elementary teaching but considered a male presence in elementary…

Describes a set of structured experiences within a preservice teacher education program that helped construct, with the students, a critical perspective toward better understanding pupils' home, community, and school lives. The structured experiences occurred within a New Mexico school community research project combined with a course on families,…