Inner-City Teachers More Authoritarian.

N

6

Authoritarianism; Class Attitudes; Classroom Techniques; Human Relations; Personnel Selection; Preservice Teacher Education; Secondary Education; Student Teacher Relationship; Student Teaching; Suburban Schools; Teacher Attitudes; Urban Schools

Findings of this study indicate that preservice teachers engaged in student teaching tend to become less humanistic and more authoritarian in their relations with students as the student teaching experience progresses. In addition, inner-city student teachers tend to be more custodial before they begin student teaching than are suburban student teachers after they complete student teaching. The sample for the study consisted of fifty-eight secondary school student teachers in suburban schools and twenty-seven secondary student teachers in inner-city schools. Subjects were administered the Pupil Control Ideology Inventory Questionnaire during prestudent teaching orientation and again during the last week of student teaching. Survey results indicate that student teachers tend to enter student teaching with an idealistic and sometimes erroneous concept of what is involved regarding discipline maintenance in the classroom, thus undergoing a marked change toward more dominant classroom control forms as the experience progresses. The more stringent screening process for student teachers in inner-city schools appears to account in part for the finding that these student teachers are more custodial before they begin student teaching than are suburban student teachers after they complete student teaching. (MB)

ED141303