Impact of occupational socialisation on South Korean teachers’ reading and delivery of physical education

ABSTRACT

Understanding how physical education (PE) teachers in a particular culture are socialised into the profession can lead to improvements in PE teacher education (PETE) and professional development. Most research on PE teachers’ occupational socialisation has been conducted in the United States and Britain. We believed that the patterns of socialisation for South Korean teachers might be different from those found in these countries. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to describe the impact of occupational socialisation on nine South Korean teachers’ reading and delivery of PE. Data were collected with five qualitative techniques and analysed by employing analytic induction and constant comparison. Key findings were that the teachers underwent a unique pattern of occupational socialisation which resulted in seven of them possessing teaching orientations, one being coaching oriented, and one having a non-teaching orientation. The teachers’ acculturation led to a high proportion of them being teaching oriented on entering PETE. Traditional PETE was more potent than other forms of PETE and reinforced the teaching orientations of those who experienced it. Innovative school cultures offset and compensated for the weak PETE experienced by some teachers. Suggestions for future research in this line are made.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational socialisation
• physical education
• South Korea

Notes on contributors

Chan Woong Park is an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota. Dr Park has an extensive academic background in sports pedagogy and adapted physical education and conducts research on teacher socialisation, adapted physical education, and adapted sports.

Matthew Curtner-Smith is a professor of kinesiology at the University of Alabama where he works with undergraduates training to be physical education teachers and graduate students in sport pedagogy. He conducts research on physical education, teaching, teacher education, curriculum, and teachers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.