Rites of Passage: A Case Study of Teacher Preparation

This case study was stimulated by involvement in a teacher‐internship programme in which the induction of beginning teachers into the profession was very inadequately guided. Their easy acceptance of simplistic approaches to teaching, with minimal accountability for results led the researchers to an appraisal of the process of teacher preparation from the vantage point of cultural induction, known to anthropologists as rites of passage. The study concluded that the inadequacies as well as the possibilities for improving teacher induction were highlighted by such a frame of reference.