The Socialization of Beginning Elementary Teachers

This study examined the socialization process which occurred early in the beginning elementary teacher\u27s career. Socialization and reference group theory provided the overarching framework for the study. In addition a number of constructs found helpful to earlier researchers, organizational socialization, perspective, problematic situations, and situational adjustment were used. The intent of this study was to generate hypotheses, not to test. Therefore, in order to build grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) a design that was open-ended was used, while data collection relied on unstructured interviews with teachers in their first, second and third year of teaching. Eventually, fifteen teachers from different school districts were interviewed. ..