This study examines lived experiences of veterinarians. A common feature of being a veterinarian is curing and caring for nonhuman animals. It is the love and connection most veterinarians share for animals that ignite their journey to become an animal doctor. Data collected during semi-structured interviews with 17 veterinarians reveal that there are many more intricacies to the job than just animal medicine. These veterinarians suggest that they must treat animals as learning tools during veterinary training and once they complete school, they deal with people and business on a regular basis. Most veterinarians would like their jobs to be animal-centric, but these data show that they are not.

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<p>Novice engineers become engineering professionals through the process of professional socialization. An important dimension of professional socialization is moral formation, and engineering education contributes to the initial process of the moral formation of engineering students. However, engineering ethics education has mainly focused on teaching ethical issues and reasoning skills, and the limitation of such approaches has been often pointed out. This dissertation is the result of the exploratory investigations to obtain insights into engineering practitioners’ moral formation, which could eventually lead to knowledge for more effectively facilitating engineering students’ moral formation.  </p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation consists of four independent but related studies. The first study (Chapter 2) is a theoretical study to establish a new framework for engineers’ professional socialization, which includes moral formation. To create the framework, I synthesized the ideas of Durkheim, Kohlberg, Hoffman, and Haidt on moral formation, with Durkheim as a common thread, and argued that the moral formation process is influenced and promoted by social discipline, a collective process that utilizes cultural influences, with respect for individual differences.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The following three studies are empirical studies informed by the first theoretical study. The second study explored the political ideologies and moral foundations of engineers in the United States. I examined how engineers’ political ideologies are associated with their moral foundations and how engineers’ political ideologies and moral foundations vary across their employment sectors, organizational positions, and demographic attributes. Especially, the comparison across different employment sectors could provide insights for ethics researchers because the working environment, which can be informed by the dominant thoughts and attitudes of the members of the group, could potentially inform the contents of the social discipline. The third study examined the relationships between engineering professionals’ personality traits, moral foundations, and political ideology, and how these interact with their workplace organizational cultures. The knowledge about the relationships and interactions could provide insights on deepening the understanding of individual differences in the moral formation process. The fourth study explored engineers’ moral narratives, and I introduced four examples. The results showed that individual engineers’ moral narratives are intertwined with their life history as a person, although there are some different approaches to pursuing a moral life. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Each study in this dissertation independently contributes to enhancing the understanding of different aspects of engineers’ moral formation, which is a complex and multifaceted process where engineers’ individual characteristics and the culture of their organizations interact. While the influence of organizational culture on moral behavior has been studied by business ethicists, this dissertation appears to be the first to examine the role of organizational culture in the moral formation of engineers. I discuss the potential opportunity to design a new pedagogy based on this dissertation as future work.    </p>

Attempts to address global pressure to achieve Education For All (EFA) have been hampered by two fundamental challenges in developing countries, namely an acute shortage of teachers and the large rural populations in these countries. In addition there is a trend for qualified competent teachers to shun working in rural settings. While recruitment of professionally unqualified graduate teachers into the teaching profession has become internationally accepted, to address particularly rural school postings and EFA commitments, there remain outstanding questions regarding how such teachers grow and develop in those rural contexts. An understanding of how these teachers develop professionally is crucial. The study explored professional development experiences of professionally unqualified practicing teachers in rural secondary schools. Through a double site study involving two international sites, Zimbabwe and KwaZulu–Natal, South Africa, an interpretive/qualitative design was adopted. Three-interview series supported by document reviews and photo elicitations were employed to explore these teachers’ experiences. Data was transcribed and manually analysed inductively utilizing open coding. The findings suggest that professional development for these teachers occurs in a number of sites, namely: through the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) / Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme; in the school through practice and school meetings; in the wider professional sites; and in informal communities. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory to describe, analyse and understand data, I argue that the professionally unqualified practicing teachers experience professional development through interaction in multiple domains of formality and experience: formal, non formal, informal and experiential. Professional development occurs across these domains however, findings show that these teachers feel incapacitated by lack of support. This implies a need for more supervisory and resource support. The teachers conceive their professional development experiences in rural secondary school contexts as underpinned by having to ‘make-do’, relational dimensions, interdependence and agency as well as resourcefulness, creativity and improvisation to address gross resource limitations. The thesis suggests a need for further research into enhancing professional development practices of the professionally unqualified practicing teachers in rural school settings. Professional development can be supported. Given that teachers are teaching in under resourced and geographically rural contexts where they have ‘to make-do’, this has a bearing on the achievement of EFA goals within the wider context. In relation to the Cultural Historical Activity Theory, my argument is that the framework provides a useful generic, analytical tool for thinking through how professional development occurs in multi-domains. However, on its own it does not provide a complete lens to make sense of the variations in professional development within the domains and levels of formality and experience. The thesis therefore argues for an additive model to CHAT, which includes domain based distinctions of formality and experience that may expand the framework and deepen its applicability specifically, in trying to understand professional development issues. The thesis therefore suggests the need for more studies, drawing on the framework and developing it to determine its applicability beyond this particular inquiry. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Curriculum Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Levando em conta os processos de socialização familiar, escolar e profissional de um grupo de professores, este trabalho propõe examinar as repercussões de um programa de formação continuada nas práticas de ensino de docentes da Educação Básica, em particular, nas práticas de leitura e escrita. O referencial teórico do estudo vale-se de conceitos de Bourdieu, Lahire, Elias e Setton. Por meio do exame de diferentes arranjos das experiências socializadoras dos professores, o trabalho indaga sobre as possibilidades de transformação das práticas docentes, sobretudo, as relacionadas ao ensino da leitura e da escrita pelo fato de serem as que foram priorizadas e enfatizadas pelo referido programa de formação. O trabalho empírico, de cunho etnográfico, adotou como procedimentos metodológicos a observação participante e a entrevista semiestruturada. Oito professores (seis mulheres e dois homens) egressos do PEC-Municípios programa especial de formação de professores de modelo semipresencial que diplomou alguns milhares de professores em nível superior foram acompanhados. As análises desenvolvidas indicam que a transformação do habitus docente por meio de dispositivos de formação continuada só se faz possível mediante determinadas condições. Professores submetidos a outras experiências formativas similares, oferecidas pelas secretarias de educação e/ou buscadas pelos docentes em outros contextos, apresentam maior probabilidade de alterar suas práticas pedagógicas. Por outro lado, a força da experiência socializadora secundária pode funcionar como um fator que dificulta fortemente a mudança das práticas, favorecendo a manutenção de uma perspectiva tradicional do ensino. Igualmente, a falta de condições objetivas no contexto profissional acarreta conflitos entre crenças e disposições para agir por parte dos professores, resultando em práticas frustradas ou apropriações superficiais que funcionam como travas à transformação do habitus docente. Assim, a socialização profissional, diante das forças das socializações primárias e secundárias e das condições contextuais de trabalho, no máximo, pode enfraquecer certas disposições docentes contribuindo, desse modo, para a formação de um habitus pedagógico híbrido (Setton). A respeito das práticas de leitura e escrita dos professores, as análises revelam que as potencialidades do modelo de formação continuada em foco são limitadas para uma transformação de maior abrangência, uma vez que atingem tão somente as práticas de ler para estudar e de ler para fins de trabalho. A hipótese inicial de investigação relacionada a um possível fomento do gosto pela leitura e escrita por prazer nos professores cursistas, tendo como pano de fundo a simetria invertida, não foi confirmada. Tais práticas apareceram cerceadas, principalmente, pela falta de condições objetivas de cunho material e temporal. O exame dos processos que configuram o habitus dos professores ao longo da vida, nos vários espaços de socialização em que foram formados, confirmou os pressupostos das teorias da ação, porém, indicando a necessidade de novos aprofundamentos que possam conduzir a uma compreensão maior sobre os determinantes da prática pedagógica e suas relações com o capital cultural herdado do campo familiar e escolar. No nível micrológico em que as análises foram desenvolvidas, foi possível chegar a um resultado que vai ao encontro da tese da reprodução cultural de Bourdieu: professores que nutrem o gosto por ler e escrever são melhores docentes quanto ao estímulo do gosto pela leitura e escrita de seus alunos. / Taking into account the processes of family, school and professional socialization of a group of teachers, the work proposes to examine the repercussions of a program of continued education on the teaching practices of basic education teachers, particularly on their reading and writing practices. The theoretical framework of the study uses concepts from Bourdieu, Lahire, Elias, and Setton. Through the examination of different arrangements of teacher socialization experiences, the work enquiries about the possibilities of transformation of teaching practices, particularly those related to the teaching of reading and writing, since they were prioritized and emphasized in the above-mentioned continued education program. The empirical work, of an ethnographic nature, adopted as methodological procedures the participant observation and the semi-structured interview. Six female and two male teachers who had finished the PEC-Municípios a special teacher education program following a semi-presence model that gave thousands of teachers a higher education certificate were followed. The analyses developed indicated that the transformation of the teaching habitus through devices of continued education is only possible if certain conditions are given. Teachers subjected to similar formative experiences offered by the State Secretariats and/or found by teachers in other contexts have a higher probability of changing their pedagogical practices. On the other hand, the strength of the secondary socializing experience can act as a factor that strongly hinders the change of practices, simulating the permanence of a traditional perspective of teaching. Likewise, the lack of objective conditions in the professional context brings conflicts between the beliefs and disposition to act on the part of teachers, resulting in frustrated practices or superficial appropriations that thwart the transformation of the teaching habitus. Thus, the professional socialization faced with the forces of primary and secondary socialization and of the prevailing working conditions can, at most, weaken certain teaching dispositions, thereby contributing to the formation of a hybrid pedagogical habitus (Setton). With respect to the teachers reading and writing practices, the work revealed that the potential of the continued education model under analysis is insufficient for a wider transformation, since it reaches only the practices of reading to study and reading for work. The initial hypothesis of this investigation related to a possible increase in the taste for reading and writing for pleasure in the teachers that took the program, under the logic of inverted symmetry, was not confirmed. Such practices appeared surrounded mainly by the lack of objective working conditions of a material and temporal nature. The examination of the processes that configure the teachers habitus during their lives, within the various socialization spaces in which they were educated, confirmed the assumptions of action theories, indicating, however, the need for new and deeper studies that may lead to a better understanding of the determining factors in the pedagogical practices and of their relations with the cultural capital inherited from the family and school fields. At the micro-logical level in which the analyses were developed, the study reached a conclusion that sits well with the cultural reproduction thesis (Bourdieu): teachers that cultivate a taste for reading and writing are better teachers in terms of stimulating the taste for reading and writing in their students.

Cette thèse propose une analyse de la socialisation professionnelle des enseignants en adoptant un cadre théorique et conceptuel interactionniste, et en s’appuyant sur des méthodes empiriques variées (observations, entretiens individuels et collectifs, suivi de cohorte qualitatif). Il en ressort quatre principaux résultats : 1) la formation initiale « marque » profondément les manières d’agir, de faire et de penser le travail des futurs enseignants ; ils y acquièrent des dispositions (langagières, temporelles, rhétoriques ou encore relationnelles) qui symbolisent l’acte de « fabrication sociale » par lequel ils sont passés. 2) Au cours de la formation initiale, les futurs enseignants sont à l’origine d’une « culture étudiante » qui vise à négocier, traduire ou transgresser les normes formelles et officielles véhiculées par l’instance de socialisation. De sorte que les normes informelles ou officieuses produites au sein de cette sous-culture possèdent une influence majeure sur la compréhension du processus de socialisation professionnelle. 3) Il existe une pluralité d’identités professionnelles adoptées par les enseignants au moment de leur entrée dans la carrière, qui se forment sur la base de la trajectoire d’accès au métier, du rapport à la formation et du rapport au travail. Loin de la figure désenchantée du jeune enseignant en souffrance, on découvre alors que le début de carrière peut se révéler épanouissant et source d’accomplissement. 4) Trois formes de carrières et d’identités professionnelles se dégagent de notre enquête diachronique : pragmatique, par « frustration relative » et autonome. En outre, l’identité professionnelle adoptée lors des premières années d’enseignement a tendance à persister dans le temps, révélant la force structurante de la dimension objective des carrières enseignantes (gradations pré-déterminées de l’avancement statutaire et de la mobilité professionnelle, contraintes liées à la séparation des sphères professionnelles et privée…). La thèse conclue sur la nécessité de questionner une vision fonctionnaliste de la formation initiale et une conception administrative de la carrière enseignante actuellement dominantes. / This thesis proposes an analysis of the teachers’ professional socialization through a theoretical and conceptual-interactionist framework. It is based on various empirical methods (observation, individual and collective talks, followed by troop qualitative). Four major elements come out of this thesis: 1) initial training has a deep influence on the soon-to-be teachers concerning the way they act and both the way they work and the way they7consider their work. The act of “social manufacturing” they undergo during their formation enables them to acquire elements for their career (linguistic, temporal, rhetorical or relational elements). 2) During their initial training, the future teachers create a “student culture” which aims at negotiating, translating or transgressing the formal and official standards conveyed by the authority of socialization. Accordingly, the abstract or semi-official standards produced within this subculture have a major influence on the comprehension of the process of professional socialization. 3) There exists a plurality of professional identities adopted by the teachers at the time they begin their career. These are founded on the trajectory which led the individuals to teaching, and also on how they deal with the training and their work. Far from the disillusioned figure of the young teacher in suffering one might expect, the beginning of a career appears to be fulfilling and to be a source of achievement. 4) Three forms of careers and professional identities emerge from our diachronic investigation: a pragmatic identity, an identity created by “relative frustration” and an autonomous identity. Moreover, the professional identity adopted at the time of the first years of teaching tends to persist in time, revealing the structuring force of the objective dimension of the teaching careers (predetermined gradations of advance statutory and professional mobility, constraints related to the separation of the private and the professional spheres…). The thesis concluded on the need for questioning a functionalist vision of initial training and an administrative design of the teaching career currently dominant.

Proactive socialization tactics, measures that organizational newcomers take to facilitate their own adjustment, have been shown to predict adjustment and more distal work-related outcomes, such as organizational commitment and intent to remain with the organization. Several cognitions and behaviors are considered to be types of proactive socialization tactics, but research has yet to distinguish between different types. Also, several individual dispositions have been identified as antecedents of proactive socialization tactics, but there has been little focus on identifying contextual or non-dispositional individual difference antecedents. The purpose of this research was to propose a dual-mode conceptualization of proactive socialization tactics and to distinguish between tactics directed toward changing oneself and those directed toward changing one's environment. This research also examined the role of contextual factors, the newcomer's age, and the newcomer's work experience as antecedents of proactive socialization tactics. The results of this research suggest that job and workgroup characteristics do indeed play a role in predicting proactive socialization tactics. Age and work experience were predictors as well, but not as strong as expected. Both self-directed and environment-directed proactive socialization tactics predicted desirable adjustment outcomes, but self-directed tactics were clearly stronger predictors of these outcomes. There was some evidence to suggest that newcomers' early fit perceptions moderated relationships between antecedents, such as workgroup characteristics, and proactive socialization tactics. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Bonn, 1991/92. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-213) and indexes.