Toward a Model of Teacher Socialization in Physical Education: Entry into Schools, Teachers’ Role Orientations, and Longevity in Teaching (Part 2)

Overcoming acculturation: physical education recruits' experiences of an alternative pedagogical approach to games teaching

“…Contrary to prior expectations based on Lawson's (1983aLawson's ( , 1983b physical education teacher socialisation theory and previous research Curtner-Smith 2005, 2010;Stran and Curtner-Smith 2009), PETE recruits who were highly successful products of the traditional approach (i.e. state or national representative in sporting games), and who were 8 expected to stay strongly committed to a process that had worked effectively for them, significantly changed their strongly held, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs and demonstrated receptiveness to the alternative approach to teaching games.…”

“…Contrary to prior expectations based on Lawson's (1983aLawson's ( , 1983b However, that study did not seek to identify the reasons that made this significant change in teaching beliefs possible. The aim of this present study is to build on this work, and that of other investigators who have gained similar success using related games-based pedagogies, by exploring features and experiences of an alternative games teaching approach that appealed to PETE recruits with strong, custodial, traditional physical education teaching beliefs, and whom are high achieving sporting products of this traditional culture.…”

“…Knowledge gained from such studies would subsequently inform and improve the design of PETE games units and programmes aimed at changing traditional physical education teaching practice. As previous research indicates the school practicum is not a good place for PSTs to experiment with innovative practice approaches due to resistant conservative cultures of schools and many other contextual factors (Howarth 2005;Lawson 1983aLawson , 1983bMcNeill et al 2004;Zeichner and Tabachnik 1981). To overcome these barriers, and facilitate PETE student's successful implementation of CLA, this planned research programme will adhere to recommendations that the practicum placement site should have a culture that encourages innovative practice, with PETE students being provided with guidance and support from a university mentor and the co-operating teacher during the experience (Gurvitch et al 2008;Howarth 2005).…”

“…In contrast, student-centred, inquiry-based approaches to teaching physical education games such as Teaching Games for Understanding constraints that present a challenge to this desired evolution of physical education teaching 5 approaches. Occupational socialisation is a theoretical framework that has guided researchers in understanding the socialisation process that explains why teachers teach physical education as they do (Lawson 1983a(Lawson , 1983b. Lawson (1986, 107) defined occupational socialisation as 'all kinds of socialisation that initially influence persons to enter the field of physical education and later are responsible for their perceptions and actions as teacher educators and teachers'.…”

“…Lawson (1986, 107) defined occupational socialisation as 'all kinds of socialisation that initially influence persons to enter the field of physical education and later are responsible for their perceptions and actions as teacher educators and teachers'. He proposed a number of hypotheses, which attempted to explain how and why three distinct types of socialization, (i) acculturation or past physical education and sporting experience, (ii) professional socialisation or formal physical education teacher education (PETE), and (iii) organisational socialisation or the teacher's workplace, were likely to shape American physical education teachers' perspectives and pedagogical practices they employed (Lawson 1983a(Lawson , 1983b. The socialisation process of acculturation is particularly relevant to PETE as observations and interactions with physical education teachers and coaches appears to have a powerful influence on prospective physical education teachers' beliefs about how the subject should be taught (Lave and Wenger 1991;Moy, Renshaw and Davids 2013).…”