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This study focused on the recruitment phase of teacher socialization, particularly the perspectives high school students, who wish to become physical education teachers, have on the teacher role. The participants were 10 high school students interested in becoming physical education teachers. They were white and attended rural or urban high schools. Four interviews were used to collect the participants' perspectives on physical education teaching: two semi-structured, open-ended interviews, a role play and a series of vignettes. The interview data were presented in three categories: biographical information, career choices and perspectives on teaching. The opportunity to work with young people and to continue their involvement in sports were two primary factors attracting the participants to careers in physical education teaching and athletic coaching. Overall, the participants preferred coaching after-school sports to teaching physical education because they believed coaching received more positive recognition and provided more opportunities to remain in competitive sports. The participant group held three primary assumptions about physical education. First, they believed that physical education accommodates athletics. Second, they assumed that the goal of physical education was to have fun. Third, the participant group believed that everyone can perform sport skills successfully with little or no instruction. Several key points from the data emerged. First, the participants regarded physical education teaching as a career contingency for coaching. Second, they viewed compulsory physical education as problematic. Third, the participants believed in a custodial approach to class management. Four, they described a multi-activity model to curriculum which would only require a limited degree of lesson planning. Finally, they regarded student learning as student participation and would reward active student participation with high grades. These perspectives on teaching support the argument that prospective teachers enter teacher training with detailed ideas about the teacher role. The information gleaned from the recruitment phase of teacher socialization must be used to inform the content of teacher preparation programs and guide the research on the teacher role.

In Massachusetts, as well as in other states, a mentoring model called the clinical site, has recently emerged. A clinical site is a public school which serves as a laboratory for student teachers. It has a corps of experienced teachers trained to serve as mentors to the student teachers, and usually includes a pre-practicum component for a local teacher training program. Proponents of clinical sites assume that there are significant professional benefits for the mentors and the school itself, as well as for the student teachers. However, it is unclear exactly what those benefits are and to what degree there is agreement among the various proponents of the clinical site concept as to the nature of those benefits. This study was designed to closely examine the expectations of the participants involved in the developmental phase of a University of Massachusetts clinical site at Greenfield High School, Greenfield Massachusetts. Interns, mentors, school administrators, and university faculty were interviewed about their expectations of the clinical site project. All participants expressed expectations consistent with the assumptions which are driving the current move to reform schools by making them centers for the study of teaching and learning. Like many teachers in the United States, the Greenfield High School teachers feel professionally isolated, and see the clinical site as a possible antidote to that isolation. They also expect the clinical site to provide teachers with opportunities to play new professional roles in the education of novice teachers. Administrators anticipate that newly energized teachers will create a ripple effect felt by everyone in the school district, including themselves. Many of the reasons why interns chose to do their student teaching at a clinical site are based on their expectation that the clinical site would mitigate against their anxieties about student teaching in general and the isolation of a remote placement in particular. Interns foresaw an experience at the clinical site which would allow them to interact with a number of professionals who were ready to help them. Beyond their primary expectation of providing their students with a more cohesive student teaching experience, university staff look to the clinical site for their own professional stimulation, and as a source of new knowledge and research. Although the expectations expressed by the participants do not conflict with one another, the economic and political climate in Massachusetts will make it difficult for the program to meet all of them, especially those which create new (not additional) roles for teachers and professors.