The occupational socialization of German physical education teachers

Abstract

ABSTRACTTo date, most of the work on the occupational socialization of physical education (PE) teachers has been completed in the United States and Britain. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe the occupational socialization of German PE teachers who were trained prior to unification of the two German states and worked in both their old nations and the new Germany. The two research questions we attempted to answer were (a) What were the perspectives and practices of West German (WG) and East German (EG) PE teachers? and (b) What factors influenced these perspectives and practices? Participants were five former WG and five former EG teachers. Data were collected using four qualitative techniques (formal and follow-up interviews, document analysis, film snippets) and analyzed by employing analytic induction and constant comparison. Findings indicated that there were distinct and different patterns of socialization for the former German states. The WG group possessed conservative teaching orientations nurtured during their childhood and youth and reinforced during their training and by their school cultures. Perceived changes in German society and culture led to slight modifications of these orientations over the teachers’ careers. Prior to reunification, the EG group possessed a high performance orientation primarily honed by the politics of the state. The perspectives and practices of WG teachers were relatively unaffected by reunification. In contrast, the transition to a new system was emancipating for four of the EG teachers who shifted to a teaching orientation. Conversely, the transition was particularly difficult for one of the former EG teachers who partially retained his high performance orientation and strategically complied with new national requirements.