Received: January 13, 2010; Revised: January 20, 2010 Accepted: March 5, 2010.
ABSTRACT
This study explored the socialization of novice Home Economics(HE) teachers employing a qualitative research method. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with four novice HE teachers from secondary schools. The collected data was analyzed inductively by NVivo, a kind of CAQDAS. The following analysis was organized around three stages of teachers' careers: first, as for influences on teacher socialization prior to formal teacher education, their experiences on 'apprenticeship of observation' provided them both positive and negative role models; second, as for the socialization role of pre-service teacher education, they mentioned that college courses were poorly connected to classroom realities with only a few helpful lectures on HE Education; third, as for socialization in the workplace and its culture, the novice HE teachers were confronted with many kinds of problems including isolation in the classroom, in-service training programs not geared to novices, an overwhelming workload, and so on. Because of these problems, they yearned for and also formed networks with other HE teachers in order to overcome their limitations. The findings supported the notion that interactive and dialectical processes exist during all stages of HE teachers' careers. This study suggests that the teacher in-service training programs are more relevant, and that the introduction of mentoring programs and classroom manuals and teacher manuals would be helpful in practice. These innovations call for cooperation between universities and provincial offices of education for teachers' professional success in teacher socialization.
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