ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a detailed analysis of student teachers’ lay theories of teaching. The deconstruction of fifteen student teachers’ ‘voices’ establishes the degree of continuity and change between their lay theories, their apprenticeship of observation, (which future students serve while they are themselves students), and culturally embedded archetypes of teaching. Understanding the critically formative influences in student teachers’ lives and the extent to which these are reinforced, reproduced and recast in, and through, student teachers’ lay theories has major significance for initial teacher education and ongoing professional development of teachers. The cultural context of this analysis is Ireland. The analysis begins by identifying the male and female cultural archetypes in the setting and these become an essential touchstone for the deconstruction of student teachers’ lay theories. The chapter concludes with some comments on initial teacher education and teachers’ professional development which are grounded in the voices of student teachers.
