Student Teaching as a Rite of Passage

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to use the concept of rites of passage to describe how cultural knowledge about teaching is acquired by neophytes during student teaching. Like other rites of passage as studied by van Gennep, Malinowski, Turner, and Moore and Myerhoff, this story of the induction of elementary student teachers follows the classic model: first the student teachers cut the ties that bind them to the ordinary world (rites of separation). Then they are secluded in the bush where a specialized body of knowledge unique to the professional community is transmitted to them (rites of transition). If they successfully survive all their trials, the novices are then ritually reinstated in the ordinary world with accompanying changes in their status, rights, and prerogatives (rites of incorporation). CULTURAL TRANSMISSION/ACQUISITION, RITES OF PASSAGE, STUDENT TEACHING, TEACHER INDUCTION