ARTICLE IN PRESS

Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

How young teachers experience their professional

work in Chile$
Beatrice Avalosa,, Pilar Aylwinb
a
Curriculum and Evaluation Unit, Ministry of Education, Santiago, Chile
b
Centre for In Service Teacher Education, Ministry of Education, Santiago, Chile

Abstract

This paper presents results from a qualitative study of 15 neophyte teachers in Chile who were part of a survey of 242
teachers in two geographical regions of the country. They were studied on the basis of questionnaires, interviews,
observations and focus groups, all of which served to examine their teaching contexts and working conditions, how they
recalled beginning to teach and its problems, their views about their profession and their work at the time of the study. The
findings show interesting variations to those themes identified in the literature such as building of professional identity,
their socialisation into schools, the relative weights of initial teacher education and experience, and the lack of support as
they begin to teach.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Neophyte teachers; Professional socialisation; Identity building; Concerns

1. Introduction ción Inicial Docente (FFID). While it is too early to

After more than a decade of educational reform
in Chile concerns about inadequate student results
in national and international assessments, is
prompting a reconsideration of the role of teachers.
One recent initiative has been the establishment of a
system of teacher evaluation, together with actions
to improve the quality of teacher education.
Between 1997 and 2002 the government funded a
comprehensive set of projects designed to strength-
en teacher education through a centrally directed
programme known as Fortalecimiento de la Forma-
$ future is vital.
This paper is based on Research Project No. 1020218, funded
by FONDECYT, Council of Science and Technology, Chile.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +56 2 207 2974.
E-mail address: bavalos@terra.cl (B. Avalos).
assess the effects of FFID on new teacher perfor-
mance, there is the need to establish a comparative
basis for different generations of teachers. Yet only
a few studies in Chile have targeted young teachers.
These are for the most part, studies by teacher
training institutions that trace the perceptions of
their own graduates (Fleming & Liñero, 2003;
Morgan, Pino, Hidalgo, & Sandoval, 2002; Rodrı́-
guez, 1996). As 65 per cent of Chilean teachers
are over 40 years of age (OECD, 2004), and will
be gradually replaced by new recruits, learning
about the younger generation of teachers and their
potential to become better professionals in the
The study on which this paper is based was
designed to fulfil the above needs. Its objective was
to explore the professional experiences of young

0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.11.003
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
516 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
teachers with three or less years of teaching, by
examining their perceptions of their initial teaching
experience and their current view of themselves.
The study was structured as a survey of 242 teachers
and a qualitative study of 15 of these teachers.
The survey’s sample was drawn from teachers
located in schools of all levels (K-12) in urban and
rural locations in the two of Chile’s administ-
rative Regions. It was undertaken over 2 years,
2003–2004.
This initial paper concentrates on the qualitative
study of 15 teachers, with occasional references to
background information provided by the survey
study. It deals with the following issues:
 Entry into teaching—how does it occur and how
was it experienced?
 How do teachers recall the process of ‘‘settling
in’’ and the difficulties encountered? How did
they deal with these problems?
 How do they describe their current working
conditions? What does it mean to be working in
different contexts/environments? How satisfac-
tory or demanding is this situation?
 How do they judge the value of their teacher
education and their professional experience as
learning factors?
 In their current state (3 years along the road)
what is their view of the future?
2. Conceptual notes
Several strands of research on teachers are
relevant for this study. Perhaps the most compre-
hensive strand refers to professional socialisation
and identity building; more concretely the processes
by which new teachers come to feel less as strangers
and more a part of the teaching and school
community (Corley, 1998; Sabar, 2004 quoting the
sociologist Alfred Schutz). This process is closely
related to the kind of teaching community or
teaching/school culture encountered by the new
teacher (Hargreaves, 1993; Kardos, 2003); and by
their experiences of professional cultures as they
move from one environment to another. The
‘‘learning to teach’’ literature explores how teachers
build on their more or less fragile conception of
what teaching is about and how they use their ‘‘bag
of tools’’ in their first teaching environments. This
literature also examines how new teachers invent
strategies to cope with new situations or problems
(Hargreaves, 1993; Lacey, 1995; Zeichner & Gore,
1990) as well as the formal or informal support
mechanisms that they find on the way. Also relevant
are studies that address the nature of professional
knowledge and how new teachers build their own
(Eraut, 1994; Carter in Munby, Russell, & Martin,
2001), and those dealing with induction (cf. Britton,
Paine, Pimm, & Raizen, 2003; Feiman-Nemser,
Schwille, Carver, & Yusko, 1999). Classic and more
recent literature describes the stages through which
beginning teachers travel before they reach some
form of stability after 3–5 years of experience
(Berliner, 1995; Fuller & Brown, 1975; Huberman,
Gonauer, & Marti, 1993; Pigge & Marso, 1997). It
should be noted that other studies challenge the
concept of natural ‘‘growth’’ stages, considering the
process to be more complex with changes or
strategic adaptations occurring for different rea-
sons. Amongst these are relations with students and
their effect on breaking an internalised structure
and causing identity changes (Conway & Clarke,
2003; Nias, 1985; Riseborough, 1985; Watzke,
2003).
3. The Chilean education context
Compulsory schooling in Chile comprises 8 years
of Basic Education (ages 6–13) and 4 years of
Middle or Secondary Education (ages 14–17)
delivered in three types of institutions: public
schools under municipal governance (51 per cent),
privately owned but publicly subsidised schools
(41 per cent) and wholly private schools (8 per cent).
The system is clearly stratified as students who
attend municipal schools in general belong to the
low and middle low-income groups, while those in
wholly private schools belong to the highest income
group. The remaining middle and upper-middle
group generally attends private subsidised schools.
Pre-school education is not compulsory but around
7.9 per cent of the total school enrolment is found in
diverse types of preschools (public or private).
While there are still a number of schools (mostly
municipal) that operate on a two-shift basis, the last
9 years has seen the gradual conversion of municipal
schools to a whole-day scheme. This has meant
lengthening the school day from six 45-min periods
to 8 periods. Teachers may be contracted as full
time (44 periods of 45 min per week), or for 30 or
less actual weekly periods. There is a fixed salary
scheme that applies to all municipal and private
subsidised school teachers, but only municipal
teachers may get agreed bonuses and other salary
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
incentives, with the exception of a bonus for work in
‘‘difficult conditions’’ that is open to both municipal
and private subsidised teachers. The starting salary
for full time teachers in Municipal and Private
Subsidised Schools is around US$ 540 a month for
full time employment (44 h per week), while those in
private schools earn about 40 per cent more for the
same amount of work. Municipal teachers have
specific employment regulations, set out in the
Teachers Statute, while private teachers fall under
general employment legislation. The situation is
different again for teachers in private subsidised
schools, where working conditions may be below
those of municipal schools.
3.1. Research procedures
The study described in this paper focuses on 15
teachers who were part of a larger survey of 242
young teachers (with three or less years of experi-
ence). The survey teachers worked under all types of
school management (municipal, private-subsidised
and wholly private schools), and at three levels (pre-
school, basic and secondary school). Their schools
were located in the urban zones of Santiago, the
capital city, (Metropolitan Region), and in urban
and rural areas around the cities of Concepción and
Chillán (Eighth Region). These Regions account for
over 50 per cent of Chile’s student school population.
The teachers for the qualitative study were
selected from a group of 20 teachers in both regions
identified from the survey group and were teaching
in the three types of schools. The final selection of
15 teachers was the result of telephone calls to
identify their presence in the contacted schools and
willingness to participate in the study. Of this sub-
sample, five teachers were located in Santiago; five
in Concepción and nearby locations, and the
remaining five in Chillán and surrounding rural
locations.
Table 1
Sampled teachers by school level taught and type of school management
Survey study
Municipal P. Subsidised
Pre-school 5 (8%) 11 (8%)
Basic school 19 (32%) 67 (52%)
Secondary 22 (37%) 16 (12%)
Basic & secondary 14 (23%) 36 (28%)
N 60 130
517
The distribution of the teachers by school level
taught and school management in which they
worked is shown in Table 1.
The 242 teachers surveyed provided information
about their personal characteristics; the problems
they recalled when they began to teach; their current
working conditions, and their teaching current
strategies as well as opinions about the effects of
teacher education and experience with regard to the
quality of their teaching practices.
Besides responding to the survey, each of the
fifteen teachers was interviewed using a semi-
structured questionnaire for information about: (a)
their personal background and current working
conditions; (b) how they recalled beginning to
teach; (c) their current experience as teachers; and
(d) their views about teaching, their reasons for
entering the profession and remaining as teachers
and how they saw themselves in the future. In order
to understand their teaching environment and gain
some insight into their teaching styles, two of the
researchers observed and recorded a lesson of all
but one teacher (whose head-teacher did not allow
it). Finally, three focus group meetings were
carried out in the cities of Santiago, Concepción
and Chillán. The meetings commenced with a
discussion on how these teachers experienced their
entry into schools prompted by reading an extract
from a research report (Johnson, Bikeland, Kauff-
man, Liu, & Peske, 2002). This was followed with
open-ended questions to promote discussion about
their teaching experiences, the impact of teacher
education, the support they received as young
teachers, their views about the educational reform
and how it affected them. Towards the end of the
meeting, the teachers were given a short paper
exercise to rate the influence of their teacher
education (initial and in-service) on their teaching,
their experience, and another to rate their time
management for the various professional activities
Qualitative study
Private Municipal P. Subsidised Private
12 (24%) 1 (10%) 0
15 (30%) 6 (60%) 3 (100%) 2 (100%)
2 (4%) 4 (30%)
21 (42%)
50 10 3 2
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518 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528

in which they engage. Two researchers facilitated Table 2

each of these meetings. The schools in which they taught
All the interviews, observations and focus group Location of school
meetings were taped and transcribed. Two struc-
tured forms were also used immediately after the Santiago Concepción Chillán
teaching observation exercise to rate several dimen- area area
sions of their lesson development patterns and the Type of management
classroom environment. These ratings were done by Municipal 2 2 2
two of the researchers and double-checked later Private subsidised 1 2 2
with the lesson transcripts. Private 1 1 —
Size of school
Responses to the questionnaire by the small
Small (200) — 2 2
group of 15 yielded similar patterns to those of Medium (600–900) 2 2 —
the sample of 242 teachers. Using the method of Large (901–1500) 2 1 3
‘‘constant comparative analysis’’ on the interview Operation
data a set of initial categories were constructed. Single shift 1 1 2
Double shift 3 3 2
These categories in turn were sharpened with
Socio-economic level
evidence from the focus group transcripts. The of students
three data groups (questionnaire, interview and Low 1 1 2
focus group) are the basis for this paper; the Middle low — 2 —
observation data is used for contextual information Middle 3 — 1
Upper middle — 1 —
only. A literature review allowed for comparisons
Upper 1 1 1
between Chilean and other teachers.

4. The teachers and their work environments

Table 3
Table 1 shows that one of the fifteen teachers Teacher workload and salary
taught at pre-school level, 11 in basic or primary Location of school
level schools and three in secondary schools. Four
schools were located in Santiago, Metropolitan Santiago Concepción Chillán
Region (MR) and nine in the Eighth Region about area area
600 km from Santiago; of these, five were in areas Hours per weeka
around Concepción, and the remainder in rural and Less than 30 3 — 1
urban areas around Chillán. The two Regions differ 30–44 1 4 4
in several respects. Forty per cent of the country’s More than 44 1 1 —
No. of schools taught
population is found in the MR, which has a higher
One 3 3 3
income level when compared to other regions but More than one 2 2 2
large income inequalities. The Eighth Region Monthly salary (US$)
contains 13 per cent of the country’s population, 360–400 2 3 5
has a higher level of poverty (27 per cent poor 500–750b 3 2 —
compared to 13 per cent in the MR), and a lower a
Equivalent to 45 min.
level of average schooling (9.4 years as compared to b
Teachers in this category are either working in a private
10.5 in the MR). school or in two or more municipal or private subsidised schools.
The teachers’ work environments are distin-
guished by type of school management, mode of and professional activities included in their sche-
operation (single or double shifts) and number and dule; while the other contracts should also allow for
socio-economic level of their students, as presented 25 per cent non-teaching time, but in practice this
in Table 2. does not always occur. Six of the teachers worked in
The working conditions of these teachers are more than one school, so they had many more
defined by contracts as either full-time teachers (44 students per week to attend than those who only
periods per week), teachers with 30 teaching taught in one (Table 3).
periods, or those on a part time basis with less than Both the group of 15 teachers and the survey
30 periods. Full-time teachers have meeting time respondents stated that they had ‘‘little or no time’’

B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
55
Prepare lessons
Help students in 58
need
Assist in school
professional
activities
57
Contact parents 52
57
0 20 40 60
Municipal P. Subsidised
Fig. 1. Percentage of teachers who have ‘‘little’’ or ‘‘no time’’ for
selected activities (N ¼ 243).
to prepare lessons, help students in need, assist in
school professional activities, and contact parents,
with the situation being generally worse for those
working in municipal schools. The type of school
management strongly influenced these responses as
shown in Fig. 1.
5. Entry into teaching
Teacher education in Chile is mostly offered by
universities, though a small percentage attend
Professional Institutes (tertiary level). Pre-school
and Basic-school teachers are mainly educated in
4-year programmes, the latter for the whole
curriculum range from first to 8th year. However,
this kind of ‘‘generalist’’ preparation is regarded as
insufficient to cope with the demands of the second
cycle of the Basic School (5th to 8 years) and so
teacher education institutions are beginning to
change their curriculum in order to offer subject-
matter specialisations for these years. Secondary
teachers are prepared in 5-year concurrent pro-
grammes (subject matter and pedagogy); a small
number attend post-graduate programmes of 10–16
months duration. The changes brought about by
the FFID programme introduced, among other
changes, sequential practical experiences from the
early stages of the teacher education programme
and the application of a set of standards to assess
the teaching performance of teachers under pre-
paration (Avalos, 2005). None of these changes
were fully in place for the teachers interviewed in
this study. Nor, at the time, was there an opera-
tional induction scheme to help beginning teachers
cope with their first teaching assignments and
overall experience.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
519
All the teachers we studied had graduated from
61 university teacher education programmes (except
68
one who attended a tertiary-level college) lasting 4–5
74
years. Most of these teachers experienced their first
79 contact with schools in the year preceding their last
one at university, and considered their first teaching
72
70 experience to be their final year ‘practicum’. Like
81
those teachers described by Lortie (2002) it was ‘‘a
reality shock’’.
Finding a job was not difficult. Some were simply
80 100 hired by the school where they had done their
Private
practicum, others dropped their curriculum vitae at
a school and were surprised to be called, while
others did short term substitute teaching followed
by full time contracts. Javier, however, was different
from the others as he got his university degree and
qualifications through a combination of distance
and face-to-face preparation. Because he had
worked in six schools during his studies as a
monitor helping children with learning difficulties
in schools, he did not experience a ‘‘beginning-to-
teach’’ trauma even though he rated it as being ‘‘a
bit complicated y but as I had the monitor
experience I soon found it easy to work with the
children’’.
Andrea, a pre-school teacher in a rural area, took
on full responsibilities right from the beginning.
When she left the university she knew she was
unprepared for the new curriculum currently being
introduced and certainly less than prepared for the
setting up of the kindergarten class as she was asked
to do in the rural school that hired her. Alexandra’s
university training had prepared her well to teach
the first 4 years of the 8-year Basic School
curriculum, but not the other 4 years. Yet, she
was entrusted with a fifth grade and found the
situation difficult: ‘‘it’s that the children in fifth
grade are bigger, and one knows more about
teaching first to fourth and very little about the
upper gradesy’’ Hired by a demanding private
school, Yvonne was a home-room teacher with 45
seventh graders, while also having to teach maths to
fifth, sixth and seventh grades. This was difficult,
she told us, especially because during her practicum
she never had more than forty pupils to look after.
The interviews and focus group meetings showed
how teachers felt about their entry into the field.
One thinks or leaves [teacher education] with the
idea that things will be the same [referring to her
practicum experience], that all the children will
be quiet, y ‘please Miss, tell us a story’. There
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
520 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
are children that don’t like science, and others
who do, and others who are easily distracted.
How do I draw everyone’s attention? So, at the
beginning, one feels quite desperate.
Nelson found it difficult being young and unpre-
pared for the type of student he encountered at the
low-income Liceo (secondary school) were he taught
Spanish. He left the university ‘‘full of ideals’’,
prepared for ‘‘something big and attractive’’ only to
face ‘‘the harsh reality of the Liceo’’. He criticised
his teacher education for not preparing him for the
kind of students he encountered. He had a solid
background in literature and was prepared to teach
‘‘a middle class student, who is motivated, sup-
ported by the family environment and able to
purchase the required materials’’. This description
simply did not fit the student population in Nelson’s
school.
Claudia found both innovation and teaching as
recommended during teacher education to be a
source of some problems at her new school. She
wanted to use the ‘‘project method’’ in the planning
of her first-grade lessons, a tool learnt at the
university. However, when she suggested this during
a meeting of first grade teachers, she was told: ‘‘I
have been 11 years in this school teaching first grade
y you don’t know how things are here, you don’t
know the children. So let’s plan our way, not
yours.’’ Remembering that her university professors
had warned her that new teachers eventually give in
to the prevailing school practices regardless of how
inappropriate they may seem to the new teacher,
Claudia decided to overtly conform to the estab-
lished norms, but do things as she saw fit in the
quiet of her classroom. At the end of the year,
during a school assembly, an excellent reading by
her pupils of a ‘‘beautiful story’’ they had written,
served to prove her point to her colleagues. Claudia
recalls that they accepted her professional judge-
ment as valid and that they ‘‘no longer tell me ‘this
cannot be done’’’.
6. Settling in
All 242 teachers in the survey were asked about
their concerns and feelings during the first 6 months
of teaching, or what we call ‘‘the settling in’’ period.
From this data and the interviews and focus groups
with the 15 teachers, we were able to build up a
picture of these challenges. They are best classified
as pedagogical concerns on the one hand and as
feelings about this early teaching experience on the
other [following Marti & Huberman, 1993].
6.1. Pedagogical concerns
Teachers viewed their first months of teaching as
a transition from greater to lesser insecurity about
content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge,
management of individual pupil differences, learn-
ing, handling of school routines and relationships
with parents. Although classroom discipline was
considered as being initially difficult, it was not a
major problem later on.
Content knowledge was understandably a con-
cern for Basic School teachers because of their
preparation as generalists for all 8 years. As might
be expected, they felt more at ease with some
subjects than others. Marcela, for example, worried
about her dislike for social studies and improved her
subject performance to avoid transmitting her
dislike to her pupils. On the other hand, content
knowledge did not prove to be a problem for the
Spanish language teachers and for the two second-
ary biology teachers because of the quality of their
university preparation, which they acknowledged.
Pedagogic content knowledge, understood by the
teachers as having appropriate strategies to teach
diverse student populations, was and is still a
problem for some. All 15 teachers used the concept
of ‘‘diversity’’ to express differences in student
motivation, learning ability and styles or cultural
background. Most of the 15 teachers recognised
that handling these differences in their subject
teaching was something they had not yet managed.
To a certain extent, Nelson had given up trying to
deal with the attitudes of his low-income secondary
students, most of whom saw little value in the kind
of education they were getting: ‘‘All I am concerned
with is to get through some clear key concepts’’, but
‘‘anything more sophisticated, I just leave it out’’.
Initially Alicia also found it difficult to catch the
attention of her students in a middle class secondary
school: ‘‘Some girls like biology, others do not,
others simply don’t connect with it. So, how do
I draw their attention? At the beginning one
almost feels desperate: ‘+What can I do?’ ‘Please,
listen to me!’’’
Every school has different routines and rules. One
of the most trying practices is the role call. In
municipal and subsidised private schools student
attendance is a requirement for maintaining the
government subsidy. Although necessary, schools
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
rarely explain to new teachers how it should
be done:
We were never taught such things as filling in the
class attendance book. I made mistakes at the
beginning yone could see I was a novice y
Maybe the other teachers assumed I knew about
this y But there were things I didn’t know and I
made mistakes. When they came to supervise me
I had to say ‘I’m sorry I made a mistake’, but the
truth is I didn’t know y When I had to register a
new child I also did not know how to do it. These
things made for problems.
The experience of dealing with parents shows how
difficult it is for young teachers to be taken seriously
and be respected. Catherine felt at times that these
difficulties had something to do with herself and
wondered about her status as a teacher. Three years
later, we observed Catherine interacting warmly
with parents at the doorway of her Basic school in a
poor neighbourhood of Santiago demonstrating
that she had managed to overcome her initial
difficulty. Andrea, who started a kindergarten at
her first rural school, had the added problem of
replacing a teacher who had earlier been rejected by
parents. So she decided to face them squarely:
This will be a new experience for you as mothers
and as guardians, because you are not used to
meetings. You have come to see how your small
children who are in school for the first time are
progressing. This is a first experience for the
children and also for me. We all have to learn.
yYou will become my field of practice y and
that means that I will also learn.
6.2. Feelings
New teachers may have particularly unsettled
feelings about their professional situations in the
schools which, if not resolved, may cause some of
them to abandon the profession or submit to its
demands without a real sense of reward. Marti and
Huberman (1993) list a number of such feelings and
the survey respondents were asked to express their
agreement/disagreement about them. When com-
pared to French-Swiss teachers, studied by Marti
and Huberman, the Chilean responses offer inter-
esting differences, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fewer Chilean beginning teachers experienced the
same concerns as their French-Swiss counterparts.
For example, ‘‘being intimidated by students’’ or
521
‘‘being more preoccupied with oneself than with the
task at hand’’ were not at all a source of concern for
Chilean teachers while they were so for close to half
of the French-Swiss teachers. More of French-Swiss
teachers than Chileans were concerned about being
in a state of ‘‘continual trial and error’’, ‘‘never
measuring up’’ or ‘‘surviving from day to day’’
while the greatest problem for Chilean teachers (65
per cent) was feeling ‘‘physically exhausted’’ at the
end of the day, something that is explained by their
demanding working environments.
However, when analysed by type of school
management, more Chilean teachers in private
subsidised schools compared to other types declared
the following feelings: ‘‘Fearing what others might
think’’, ‘‘being in a continuous trial and error
situation’’, ‘‘surviving from day to day’’, ‘‘teaching
other than standard lecture formats’’, and ‘‘not
being able to motivate students’’.
6.3. School and teaching cultures
These respondents did not have a formal intro-
duction into teaching because in Chile there is no
provision for induction after teacher education has
been completed. Only one of the 15 teachers said she
had been observed during her first year of teaching,
(and then only once), while another private school
teacher was required to work under a supervisor
who helped her and checked her work. So teachers
deal with these challenges on their own or with
informal help from colleagues or family members,
and in some cases through participation in teacher
workshops at their schools:
I got help from other teachers especially those
trained in the old Normal Schools because I was
told they were very good teachers y their
suggestions often helped (Fernando)
I asked my mother [a teacher] and got lots of
materials from her (Claudia)
A colleague of Catherine’s helped her to over-
come difficulties in math teaching, while Andrea
and Javier (the rural teachers) got help from their
local Rural Micro-centres (periodic meetings of
teachers). But most teachers worked things out on
their own:
One just goes on learning, and comes to grip with
things y (Alicia)
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522 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528

Intimidated by students

Preoccupation with oneself other than with

the task at hand

Feelings of 'never measuring up'

Difficulty in teaching other than standard

lecture formats

Difficulties in maintaining class control

Not being able to motivate students

Inconsistency (sometimes rigid sometimes

'laissez faire'

Feelings of surviving from day to day

Discouragement

Feelings of continual trial and error

Fearing what others might think

Physical exhaustion

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
% of teachers
Chilean teachers Swiss teachers

Fig. 2. Concerns of Chilean and Swiss teachers (percentage of teachers agreeing).

Mainly, I think all this is the result of my work
experience, that is, of what I do in the classroom
(Marcela)
I feel the difficulties but I overcome them y I
just don’t stand there, in a void y (Javier)
Schools appear to have different ‘‘teaching cul-
tures’’ (Johnson et al., 2002; Kardos, 2003).
According to Kardos, ‘‘integrated’’ school cultures
as opposed to fragmented cultures are those where
neophyte teachers have a special status and there is
a good mix of young and older teachers as well as
shared professional responsibility for student re-
sults. During the focus group meetings, teachers
considered to what extent their schools resembled
this concept of ‘‘integrated school culture.’’ Initially,
they were hesitant to describe their schools as non-
integrated. However, as focus group discussions
deepened, few continued to agree that their schools
had an ‘‘integrated’’ culture, one where they felt
recognised and helped. Only one of the teachers in a
Catholic private school maintained this view. The
others had different perceptions:
Here at the Liceo it is difficult to fit in because
there are many teachers y no teacher is assigned
to help the new ones y I did not have any
concrete difficulties with authorities, but I also
tried not to be a cause of problems (Alicia).
Yvonne, taught at a private school with a strong
results-orientation culture. She considered it a
mistake ‘‘to have tried to place myself at their level,
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
when in fact that is impossible’’. Teachers at
Nelson’s secondary school addressed him as ‘‘m’hi-
jito’’ (kid). Most of them had been teaching at the
school for over 30 years, and Nelson’s first
impression was that among them ‘‘professional
relations were not good y it was difficult to have
empathetic relations with them y in fact, they
simply were distant’’. Fernando arrived at a school
where teachers were clearly divided into two groups;
he opted for a conciliatory attitude trying to
maintain respectful relations with them both.
Teaching in two schools can result in different
experiences. Elizabeth worked in the mornings in a
very poorly resourced school in a low-income
neighbourhood in urban Concepción. Teachers
formed a closely-knit community, though not
necessarily focused on results. Her pupils’ vulner-
ability gave Elizabeth a sense of importance
regarding her teacher’s role. Her afternoon school
was very much the opposite, a wealthy school with
all sorts of teaching resources, but with less freedom
to innovate and more limited student relations:
I live as if in two extremes. With one of my
classes I am able to go to the nearby hillside, to
the cascade, to the zoo, we can go here and there.
Kids ‘don’t climb that tree’ y but they can jump
over the brook and I am confident that nothing
will happen to them. That is because they are
brought up on the streets y the streets are their
home. But with those other children who are
taken to and picked up from school by their
mothers y I really don’t dare. Alone? With forty
children? I just don’t take them out. We do lots
of things, but in the school, in the playgroundy
(Elizabeth)
Javier taught in the mornings in a private
subsidised school in Chillán and in the afternoons
at a poor rural school some 10 km away from the
city. He describes his rural school as having a more
relaxed atmosphere (confirmed during our visit) and
with less rules and regulations compared to the city
school where, for example, parents are summoned if
their child has more than three notes for mis-
conduct. However, he tells us, neither school has a
professional culture centred on shared goals and
activity plans that might help the neophyte teacher.
7. Three years after
We first met these teachers when they were in
their third year of teaching. We wanted to know not
523
only what happened when they began teaching, but
how they interpreted their teacher identity and roles
now. Were they satisfied with the profession they
had prepared for? How sure did they feel about
their performance, how did they regard their
students, how effective did they consider their work,
and how did they regard the education system and
its reforms? We also asked them how much they
owed to their education, professional development
opportunities and to their learning through experi-
ence.
We asked each teacher during the focus group to
rank these three forms of preparation. The highest
weighting given to teacher education was 50 per cent
by a teacher who valued the opportunity to learn
subject matter and psychology. On the other hand,
Claudia, a Basic Education teacher gave the lowest
weighting to her teacher education (10 per cent)
explaining that there had been too much theory and
not enough practice; but with a caveat. She was a
guinea pig in a new pilot programme. Though she
recognised that things could have changed–she
thinks that student teachers from her university
who now come to the school for their practicum
appear to be better prepared than she was. Claudia
believes that experience and in-service courses has
helped her teaching improve: ‘‘I have learned more
[through these experiences] than what I learned in 4
years of teacher education’’. All three secondary
teachers attributed their subject knowledge to
university education but regretted the lack of
sufficient practical preparation for teaching. In
summary, their views about teacher education
included: (a) not enough preparation to deal with
heterogeneous school populations; (b) not enough
‘know-how’ to deal with discipline problems in the
classroom; (c) lack of information on school
routines and rules; (d) lack of preparation to deal
with parents; and (e) excessive theoretical teaching.
Several of the teachers are taking diplomas’ or
master courses at their own expense, but most had
not been offered any of form professional develop-
ment by the school or elsewhere. Understandably,
they rated professional development opportunities
poorly as a source of teaching improvement. This is
also the view of the 242 teachers who responded this
question in the survey.
Regarding their degree of satisfaction as profes-
sionals, none of the 15 teachers showed any sign
of being ready to leave the profession. Quite
the contrary from the descriptions of their work,
the discussions they held amongst themselves during
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524 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528

Table 4
Quality of classroom environment of observed teachers (11)

Rating criteria No. of

teachers

Equity, trust, freedom and respect among pupils and with teacher
Good climate: teacher respects pupils and pupils respect each other, there is opportunity for many pupils to participate in the 8
lesson
Excellent climate: besides the former, negative comments of pupils are dealt with pedagogically 3
Relationships with pupils
Besides using appropriate communication strategies, the teacher is receptive to pupils. 5
Besides the former, the teacher has good knowledge of pupils characteristics and communicates with them appropriately 6
Communication of challenging expectations to pupils
With some frequency the teacher notes the work of some pupils and suggest how they could improve. 8
Besides the former, there are pupils who suggest ideas to the teacher about what they are learning 3
Consistent and agreed upon behaviour norms
Faced with disturbances, the teacher does nothing to respond to these or the response shows little respect for pupils. 1
There is a peaceful classroom climate without serious disturbances or the teacher responds appropriately when these occur. 2
There is a consistent form of response to minor disturbances or the pupils’ behaviour is consistently appropriate 7
The physical environment is safe and conducive to learning
The classroom’s physical environment is satisfactory and/or the pupils sitting at the back do not see what is written on the 1
board
The classroom’s physical environment is agreeable and pupils’ work is displayed on the walls 2
Besides the former, students move around the room easily when they are called to do so 7

the focus group meetings and the way in which they
dealt with the students in the teaching situations, we
observed a high degree of professional commitment
and quality of classroom interaction with students
(see Table 4).
They have increased confidence in themselves and
about what they do, though admit to difficulties in
handling serious discipline problems, and teaching
complex content areas in subjects for which they feel
less prepared (Basic Education teachers).
These teachers describe their students warmly and
show good practical knowledge about their person-
alities and learning abilities. Specifically, the Basic
Education teachers see themselves in caring roles,
especially with children from poorer backgrounds
or unsatisfactory family circumstances. This is true
also of the two male teachers in the group.
When questioned about how they perceive the
teachers’ role, two or three visions emerged. One
group understands teaching as mainly a caring
profession’ charged with exerting ‘leadership’. Some
described themselves in a bridging role (‘‘media-
tors’’) between knowledge and the students, search-
ing to ‘‘find the right side of a student in order to
help him to learn’’. None wished to be viewed as
simple producers of content learning, though they
recognised this as the purpose of teaching. Nor do
they see themselves as limited to classroom teaching.
Elizabeth convenes teacher workshops at one of her
schools; Javier visits the homes of children and
teaches adult education courses (even though he
also works in 2 day schools). Claudia now has
added to her teaching commitments computing
lessons, maths to sixth grade and using skills
acquired during her Special Education masters’
degree to work children with difficulties in learning,
She has also begun to teach an adult education
course outside of the school:
I thought that it was all a lot colder, that teachers
were supposed only to pass on subject matter
content, that when one finishes a teaching day
one just goes home. I have learnt that teachers
must give themselves to the community, and try
to be one more member of the community
(Javier).
Slowly, these teachers have also become aware that
they are important for their students’ learning.
Marcela recalled how in her first year she focused
more on improving her young pupils behaviour,
while in the second year she worked ‘‘more on the
content side, trying to get them to do better’’. She
acknowledges, however, that she could have done
more. Catherine spent the greater part of the
teaching year working on the linguistic skills of
her fourth grade pupils in a poor Santiago
neighbourhood in order that they might be success-
ful in that year’s national assessment exercise.
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B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
Andrea, who set up the kindergarten in her rural
school and experienced a rough first teaching year
now recognises how much her rural children have
changed (as we did when we observed her children
interact):
Their achievement is really incredible y this hit
me when a university student who was doing her
practice teaching said to me: ‘your children are
no different from the city children in Chillán’.
That pleased me enormously. If you look at
them, if they talk to you, you can see how they
present their ideas, their opinions. That was not
true of my children the year before.
8. Discussion and conclusions
This study throws light on professional socialisa-
tion and identity building; how neophyte teachers
handle classroom and school challenge, and on the
process of learning to teach.
The concept of the self as a teacher and the sense
of belonging to a profession is built through a
process that may begin during teacher education,
but most certainly gets (or does not get) a definitive
boost when teachers begin to teach as certified
professionals.
Professional reputation is linked to how teaching
is viewed in the society where he or she belong (as
indicated by salary levels, public discourse and
working conditions). These values affect those who
enter a profession. But teachers who begin to work
in an undervalued profession may alter the prevail-
ing view when they encounter and become respon-
sible for a group of children or young people in their
schools. And in this sense, their decision to stay in
the profession is likely to depend on how they
interpret these first school encounters. If the process
is too difficult, the teacher may reject the profession
and leave but if it is rewarding, teachers will
undertake the task of growing professionally. The
process of building a professional identity is
complex and occurs over time, often cyclically (with
heights and lows) but it involves decision and
commitment to pursue its path.
In many respects, the teachers in this study are
similar to those in the USA described by Lortie
(2002, 2nd ed.) some 30 years ago. They began their
university education at a time when teaching was a
profession of last resort, with inadequate salaries
and working conditions. Compared to those enter-
ing other professions their secondary school grades
525
and University Entrance Examination scores were
lower. Their teaching preparation was prior the
teacher education reforms under the FFID Project,
while since 2004 most of new teachers have
graduated from improved teacher education pro-
grammes. However, within the limits of their
current experience, these teachers feel committed
to their profession and are satisfied with the work
they do.
These experiences (the kind of school in which
teaching begins, its students and the roles teachers
play) are key elements in the negotiation of a
professional identity (Corley, 1998). How close this
is to becoming socialised into the profession
depends on what is meant by ‘‘socialisation’’. Does
it mean adapting to an existing school or profes-
sional culture or assuming a broader educative
rather than school role? The teachers in this study
vary in the degree and form of their professional
socialisation into the school culture. Some confess a
reluctant acceptance of school styles and proce-
dures; others have been more active, and are closer
to Lacey’s (1995) interactive concept of socialisa-
tion. Two teachers faced conflict and school
divisions in a conciliatory manner but without
necessarily feeling content with the situation. Being
told ‘‘this is not done’’ did not deter another teacher
from ‘‘strategically adjusting’’, that is, complying
overtly but innovating in her classroom.
In terms of the future, several teachers do not see
themselves as teaching the same lessons in the
classroom. Some view themselves in leadership roles
in schools, having shifted to work with special
education children, or become university professors
(one was already a university assistant) over the
next 10 years. Their attitudes are consistent with the
concept of professional identity as ‘‘an ongoing
process of interpretation and reinterpretation
of experience’’ (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004,
p. 122).
Parents and students are key referent individuals
in the process of building a professional self and
having a recognised status in school. Teachers have
to overcome the disadvantage of youth in the eyes
of some parents; their self-confidence can help win
them over as we learnt from some of the teachers
studied. In some circumstances students may act as
gatekeepers with enough power to frame their
teacher’s self-perceptions (Riseborough, 1985). Stu-
dents, especially the younger ones, as in Nias’ (1985)
study of primary schools, compensate for difficult
staff relations.
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526 B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
Conversations held with the Basic School tea-
chers and our observations of their classroom work
showed that pupils were central to their view of the
profession. They provide meaning to their teaching,
despite differences in motivation and learning
capacity. Secondary teachers with less of a day-to-
day contact with their pupils are prone to establish
more egalitarian relationships, while their students
strongly influence both negatively and positively,
their teacher’s identity and role (Riseborough,
1985).
The initial concerns of the teachers interviewed
touch on relations with students, parents and other
colleagues; they relate directly to teaching and
classroom management such as maintaining disci-
pline or stimulating student interest and learning.
They also derive from working conditions such as
excessive demands on scarce time and compliance
with particular forms of management, rules and
regulations (Ganser, 1999; Griffiths, 2003; Marcelo
Garcı́a, 1993). Their ability to manage these
problems depends on acquiring professional self-
confidence, which may be experienced as a series of
stages through which teachers go through before
they feel sufficiently sure about themselves and their
professional abilities (Fuller & Brown, 1975; God-
dard & Foster, 2001; Pigge & Marso, 1997; Watzke,
2003).
The teachers described in Marti and Huberman’s
study (1993), identified three sources of help for
their pedagogic problems: getting positive com-
ments from others (colleagues, students, head-
teacher or parents); pedagogical support by collea-
gues, materials, or a reduced teaching load; or
acquiring greater control over his or her teaching,
better use of teaching strategies or simply experien-
cing that things are working out well. The teachers
in our study received informal help from colleagues
and exerted personal effort such as ‘discovery’ or
‘trial and error’’ to sort problems out. Their main
preoccupations were about reaching students and
dealing with their different abilities and motiva-
tions. Without supervision and classroom observa-
tion, they relied for answers on their old university
textbooks, research in the school library, the
borrowing of books or materials, use Internet if
available, or colleagues.
The greatest influence according to these young
teachers has been their learning from experience,
which is consistent with the situational nature of
professional knowledge (Berliner, 1995). But the
respondents did not accept that teaching quality
should depend only or mainly on experiential
learning. Teacher education should play and im-
portant role in their view. However, in contrast with
Portuguese teachers who declared themselves as
having to ‘unlearn’ what they had learnt at
university in order to cope with new demands
(Flores, 2002), Chilean teachers while prioritising
learning through experience did not disown the
contribution of their initial teacher education.
Teachers’ knowledge is broadly accepted to be
particularistic (Eraut, 1994; Carter in Munby et al.,
2001). It develops through judgments about con-
crete situations, anchored in acquired knowledge as
well as personal beliefs and concepts. This experi-
ence is difficult to transfer to other situations
(Eraut, 1994). Hence it is unlikely that the knowl-
edge and pedagogic content acquired through
teacher education can be sufficient (Shulman,
1987). This is consistent with Lortie’s (2002, p. 73)
conclusion that ‘‘each [beginning] teacher must
laboriously construct ways of perceiving and inter-
preting what is significant’’.
In Chilean school environments learning through
experience is practically the only available form. In
the interviews and focus groups the 15 teachers,
directly or indirectly, referred to learning after
initial teacher education as a personal activity
triggered by the need to deal with problems or by
their own personal interests.
None of these teachers had what Lortie (2002, p.
59) called the ‘‘mediated entry’’ that we now refer to
as induction. They entered the profession abruptly
taking on full responsibilities. Their school’s
rules and regulations were not explained. Most of
them were never observed in their teaching,
and never received feedback that might help them
to improve. They had no other alternative but to
learn for and by themselves. However, it seems
likely that they would have been better professionals
and more satisfied if they had been mentored or
given learning opportunities as part of their time-
tables.
This practical learning gap should be a matter of
concern to both the Ministry of Education and
school authorities in Chile and other countries
where the same situation is observed. The respon-
dents to this study are highly committed to their
work and their professional development and
satisfaction is the basis of a fruitful teaching career.
Strengthening their abilities by more formal induc-
tion and a greater appreciation of the socialisation
process could not only reinforce this commitment at
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B. Avalos, P. Aylwin / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 515–528
a difficult juncture in their professional lives, but
also build a foundation for improved teaching in
their future careers and in Chilean schools.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the contribution of Beverley
Carlson to the design and execution of the survey
study, which is part of this project.
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