The Socialisation of Mature Women Student Teachers: The importance of ethnographic accounts to educational research

The article examines the processes of change and adaptation which a group of undergraduate mature women students underwent as they learned to become student teachers. The study sits firmly within the qualitative paradigm and offers a holistic analysis of student teacher socialisation in which the complexity of adaptation is revealed through the inter-relationship of gender, identity, life course, coping strategies and the negotiation of change. A major theme of the study examines the uneasy blend of struggle, contestation, guilt and success which became a daily feature of their lives as mothers, wives and full-time student teachers. The article argues that the ethnographic research approach was the most appropriate method for revealing new insights about student teacher socialisation. Moreover, it is suggested that ethnographic accounts have an important contribution to make to educational theory and knowledge provided that they go beyond minimalist criteria for good practice.