New Teacher Socialization and the Testing Apparatus

Abstract

Given the well-documented pervasiveness of high-stakes assessment in preK–12 schools, many researchers have investigated how testing affects students. In this article, Sarah Byrne Bausell and Jocelyn A. Glazier explore the ways that high-stakes testing influences beginning teacher socialization and the ways that teacher colleagues shape one another's responses to these policies. The authors use discourse analysis to examine six years of transcripts collected from a series of quarterly teacher discussion groups, during which elementary school teachers talked about their work within the testing landscape. Their findings indicate that high-stakes testing deeply affects teacher beliefs, practices, and socialization behaviors, thus revealing a troubling tendency to position students as numbers and a sharp decline in talk about teaching philosophies and practices develops alongside the testing policy landscape. Bausell and Glazier recommend that teacher educators prepare future teachers with an understanding of the ways teacher socialization unfolds so that new teachers can be mindful of the factors that may shape their practice.