ABSTRACT
Concern about the nature of teaching practice in secondary teacher training and the relationship between institutional and school contributions to that training have been recurring themes in the recent New Zealand literature of training. Personal biography, until recently a relatively neglected independent variable in research into training, has been shown in this study to provide useful evidence with which to explain aspects of trainees’ disposition and classroom behaviour. The relative absence of reflective action among the trainees, however, appeared to be less a function of structural deficiencies in training than to simple neglect. The acceptance of their status in the schools, however, appeared to inhibit trainees’ efforts to take a reflective view of teaching. The findings suggest that where such a programme is organized in terms of specific skills and resources, it does provide trainees with routines around which to organize and present their lessons.
