Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 147}160

Cultural assimilation: a narrative case study of student-teaching in an inner-city school

Stephen P. Rushton*
Department of Education, University of South Florida, 5700 Tamiami Trail, PMC 217, Sarasota, FL 34243, USA Received 23 April 1999; received in revised form 8 December 1999; accepted 8 February 2000

Abstract A preservice teacher's personal beliefs regarding teaching are confronted by her experiences during a yearlong internship in an inner-city school. Analysis of four interviews, 12 written re#ections, and seven transcribed group discussions revealed a sense of the culture shock Mary experienced on entering the inner-city school. Her narratives described a journey from initial culture shock, eliciting both emotional and cognitive dissonance, to cultural assimilation as she adapted to her concerns about her students, her worries about getting along with her mentoring teacher, and her doubts about her own abilities. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Narrative; Case study; Inner-city; Preservice teacher; Culture; Con#ict

1. Introduction Narrative accounts of people's lived experiences have become a powerful tool for educational researchers. Recently, Preskill contended that narrative stories were valuable ingredients which could help those striving to improve the quality of teacher education. `These storiesa he stated, `are guides to the challenges, pitfalls, and joys of educating childrena (Preskill, 1998, p. 344). Weber (1993) similarly contended that story telling is an underestimated and important aspect of teaching and research. Educational researchers have used narratives in many situations to gain insights on how teachers think (Craig, 1995, 1998), how children perceive teachers (Lincoln, 1995; Thomas & Montomery,

* Tel.: #1-941-359-4345; fax: #1-941-359-4236. E-mail address: srushton@sar.usf.edu (S.P. Rushton).

1998), and how schools work (Cortazzi, 1993). Connelly and Clandinin (1990) suggested that teachers' narratives acted as a metaphor for the teaching}learning relationship, claiming that `Life's narratives are the context for making meaning of school situationsa (p. 2). Carter (1993) discussed how educators were turning to stories in order to `capture the richness and indeterminacy of our experiences as teachers and the complexity of our understandings of what teaching isa (p. 5). Weber (1993) too, placed narrative in the context of higher education. She indicated that narrative research reconceptualized professional knowledge, which required detailed examination of the individual's experiences within a speci"c context. Indeed, Yin (1995) suggested that people's experiences were best uncovered through case studies, which allowed researchers to make connections that would be too complex for surveys or experiments.

0742-051X/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 7 4 2 - 0 5 1 X ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 4 8 - 2

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During the past decade research has focused on prospective teachers' practical knowledge and beliefs about learning and teaching that they bring to their preservice training (Calderhead, 1991; Clandinin, 1989; Joram & Gabriele, 1998; Tillema, 1994). These prior beliefs are hypothesized to in#uence preservice teachers' views of the learner as well as their ability to process new information. Anderson et al. (1995) indicated that such prior beliefs can inhibit the preservice teacher's capacity to learn. Kagan (1992) suggested that some educational beliefs were too deeply ingrained to change easily, especially when the cultural context of the teaching environment di!ered widely from that in which the preservice teacher was raised. Many di$culties and uncertainties experienced by preservice teachers have long been noted (Berliner, 1988; Fuller & Bown, 1975; McDermott et al., 1995; Pilard, 1992). One early study by Lantz (1964) described the di$culties preservice teachers faced in developing self-con"dence. He recommended that preservice teachers be placed in nonthreatening classrooms. Walberg (1968) found preservice teachers were often in con#ict between the desire to create friendly rapport with their students and the need to maintain authority and discipline. Fuller (1969) noted that preservice teachers were often overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, by circumstances, and by interpersonal con#icts. Fuller and Bown (1975) described student teachers as so preoccupied with their own adjustment that they had little energy left over for the concerns of their pupils. Glassberg and Sprinthall (1980, p. 14) concluded that: `Results indicate a multiplicity of concrete and clearly negative "ndings*interns become more authoritarian, rigid, impersonal, restrictive, arbitrary, bureaucratic and custodial by the end of their student-teaching experiencesa. It is reasonable to expect that the problems of adjustment facing preservice teachers are even greater in inner-city schools. By the year 2010 a third of all children in America will be members of groups currently designated as `minoritiesa (National Commission, 1996, 1997). Immigration from Central America, Asia, and Africa now rivals in size the great immigrations of the 19th and 20th centuries. This is profoundly a!ecting American classrooms. The new generation

of teachers will need to be able to deal with a diversity of multi-ethnic issues. In contrast to the changing face of the `American studenta, preservice teachers remain mainly white, female and 22 with limited experience of people from cultures di!erent than their own (National Commission, 1997). Problems in schools complicate the situation even further. Some children arrive hungry and frightened due to `the plagues of modern life*crime and violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and lack of adequate health carea (National Commission, 1996, p. 13). Inner cities often contain many disadvantaged people in public housing, many of whom are under-educated minorities. Schools located in the inner-city often face problems of overcrowding, inadequate facilities, limited funding, poor resources and the threat of violence (Kozol, 1991; Williams & Williamson, 1992). In his narrative, Savage Inequalities, Kozol (1991) described the crises and discrepancies in funding as well as the inadequacy of teaching in inner-city schools. Recently Craig (1995, 1998) shed light on how personal knowledge of beginning teachers grows during their "rst year. She used stories to chronicle the development of preservice teachers. Unfortunately, little or no research has looked at preservice teachers interning in inner-city schools. CochranSmith and Lytle (1990) correctly maintained that research on student-teaching has especially failed to describe the point of view of the preservice teacher within inner-city schools, especially what it feels like to be a preservice teacher there and what experiences they have. They concluded that the `dominant paradigms in research on teaching over the past 20 years have excluded the teachers' voice, questions, and interpretive framesa (CochranSmith & Lytle, 1990, p. 23). Similarly, when Hynes and Socoski (1991) reviewed the literature they `did not uncover any sustained e!ort to assess preservice teachers' individual attitudes about teaching in urban schoolsa (p. 2). A recent search, conducted by this author on the ERIC data base, revealed that the situation had not changed in the interim. No recent publications describing the experiences of preservice teachers in inner-city schools, and very few dissertation abstracts, were found. On the other hand, a number of

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researchers have focused on teachers in the innercity schools (Kozol, 1991; Kretovics & Nussel, 1994; Walter, 1998; Weiner, 1993). The future of public education rests in large part on the abilities of teachers, particularly preservice teachers currently being trained. Several commissions of inquiry have called for these teachers to be better prepared. The Carnegie Report (1986), the Project Alliance 30 (1991), the Holmes Group (1995), and The National Commissions (1996, 1997) have all challenged the universities to set higher standards in order to attract better candidates. Additionally, the Commissions urged the universities to train teachers to have a greater understanding of learners and their cultures. With these issues in mind, this case study focuses on the narrative of a young woman's experiences as a preservice teacher in an inner-city school. It is the story of a journey in which Mary's views and beliefs, regarding both teaching in general, and teaching in the inner-city in particular, are deeply challenged through a series of con#icts. Her personal practical knowledge grew as she experienced culture shock, with her prior understanding of teaching in the inner-city being confronted by her perception of the immediate situation. The narrative presented here describes several con#icts Mary encountered while student teaching over the course of a year. The narrative reveals how she adapted to these con#icts and how these con#icts in#uenced her understanding of the learner, the environment, and herself. This study forms a more in-depth analysis from a series of cases that depict the growth of e$cacy of "ve preservice teachers (Rushton, 1997). 2. Method 2.1. Research design and data collection A qualitative research design was utilized to gather three separate sources of text in order to understand Mary's experiences. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994; Fraenkel & Wallen, 1996) as well as both written and oral re#ections, Mary chronicled her experiences during the course of the year with a series of stories regarding herself, others, and the

environment in which she carried out her studentteaching. Data were collected from three sources. The primary source of information comprised four 2-h interviews, spaced evenly over the 10 months of her internship (August to May). Interview questions focused on Mary's experiences and perceptions of teaching in inner-city schools. Several questions were asked to guide the interview, such as, `What experiences stood out for you the most?a, `Tell me a story about what has happened to you or one of your students during the past montha and `What has impacted you the most?a. All interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. All names have been changed. A second source of data consisted of weekly two-page re#ections that Mary wrote about her experiences during the previous week. These written re#ections were collected once a week for the "rst 3 months of her internship (September to December). The purpose of the written re#ection was to capture, in story form, an event that had had a signi"cant in#uence on Mary that week. The focus could be a student in her class, the mentoring teacher, an aspect of her own teaching, or something that struck her about the teaching culture in which she was located. A third source of data consisted of weekly taped discussions in which Mary took part, along with her fellow preservice teachers who were in similar situations. In these, Mary discussed what she had written in her weekly re#ection, or some other experience she had had during the previous week. These discussions took place in weekly group meetings as part of a methods course during the "rst semester (September to December). The preservice teachers had the opportunity to listen to and re#ect upon each others' experiences as they discussed the preceding week's events. 2.2. Data analysis The interpretation of the data began with a reading of all of Mary's written re#ections, her four transcribed interviews, and her remarks in the group discussions. Then I went back to the written re#ections and wrote a precis of them along H with a summary table of the contents. From here,

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I began indexing, highlighting, and color coding di!erent areas of text which appeared to me to share similar themes. Notes relating to key issues were placed in the margins of the interviews alongside the highlighted portions. Thus, references to children were highlighted in one color and information that related to mentoring teachers was highlighted in another color. Many categories emerged covering a wide range of topics. Some of the main ones concerned interactions with people (children, teachers, principals, supervisors), interactions in the environment (inner-city, university, classroom), and interactions with self (con#icts with self, concerns about maturity). I began to view Mary's experiences as a development from her own preconceived knowledge of teaching in the inner-city to a broader view based upon her actual experiences. From the interviews I delineated a four-phase growth in development as described more fully in the original study (Rushton, 1997). The present study describes the improvement in her self-e$cacy and skills as she encountered a culture di!erent from hers. 2.3. The setting Mary was a preservice teacher specializing in a recently established M.A. program speci"cally designed to train preservice teachers to work in urban and multi-cultural settings. She interned a full year in the Elementary Education Department at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The program required students to intern for a full year in order to help them understand the socioeconomic, cultural, and political issues that face teachers who work in the inner cities. This "fth year of internship is relatively unique in teacher preparation programs and helps qualify the teachers for their Masters degree. The school in which Mary completed her teaching was located in the heart of downtown Knoxville about 5 miles from the university. It was chosen (along with three other schools) as exemplifying the special challenges faced by inner-city teachers. Mary's school housed approximately 500 kindergarten to sixth graders of whom 90}95% were African American. Most of these students were poor enough to receive free and reduced-price

lunches. The school site is within walking distance of the subsidized housing referred to as `The Projectsa by both the teaching sta! and students. The majority of Mary's students lived there. 2.4. My role As a doctoral student and instructor for this program I was interested in understanding the ongoing experiences and perceptions of these students. In the semester prior to the internship, each of them was required to spend several half-days a week for 4 months (January to April) in an innercity school classroom, so as to become familiar with the school and its environment. During this "rst semester, I was both their instructor (teaching an elementary methods course) and their supervisor (observing them in their teaching placements). As part of this training, each preservice teacher was required to write a journal about their initial experiences. It became evident, through these journals and weekly class discussions, that some of the interns' experiences overwhelmed them and challenged their beliefs about teaching. This led me to decide to study the experiences of these preservice teachers more fully as they moved into their year long internship. Mary was a participant in this study. At this point, I stepped down from serving as her supervisor or instructor so as to minimize biasing her responses during the interviews. 2.5. The participant: Mary Mary, a white 22-year-old female, said that she saw herself as a `liberal-minded feminista who planned to dedicate her life to bringing about `equal rights for othersa. She saw herself as having a strong spiritual component to her life that helped balance a `problematic and unstablea childhood. Mary discussed her religious beliefs and how her concept of God helped her to live through this di$cult time in her life. Mary spoke freely about an unhappy childhood which she attributed to her `dysfunctional familya and the climate of living in rural Tennessee. Equating her childhood to that of a `roller coaster ridea, she said she had learned to cope and deal with issues of `mental abandonment, sexual harassment, and physical abusea.

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Both her parents and subsequent step-parents `divorce[d], re-marry[ied], divorce[d], and separate[d] enough timesa that she felt as though `they were more separated than they were togethera. Her father, an alcoholic, maintained a `strict household and expected us to wait on hima, while her mother's narcotic addictions and attempted suicide forced Mary to take on the responsibility for raising her two younger brothers. In her "rst interview she stated, `I know that I come from a dysfunctional family. I had a father who was an alcoholic. I have seen some things that made me feel like I grew up very fast. I feel like I became a mom at thirteena. In addition to a turbulent home, Mary's school life was disrupted by episodes of physical abuse and sexual harassment. Mary described her junior high school experience as: During junior high I was sexually harassed by my peers2they would touch us in school and private parts [sic], they would grab us and slam us against the lockers and say really nasty and provocative things to us and actually I was the only one that2well, they hit on me and stu!, so I had like pictures taken of my arms which were bruised and stu!. Despite restraining orders, the boys continued their harassment. Mary described her senior year as being especially painful: I was really miserable in my senior year. I had one guy hit me with several books on the top of my head and I was really lucky that it did not really hurt me2. I have had the sexual harassment, and that went far enough2 it was really scary2 I've been slammed up against the lockers and had my skirt pulled up, pulled down2 pictures drawn2 you would walk around the hall and they have your name and you know, pornographic pictures and stu!. So when I was a senior in high school I was in tears every day2he threatened to kill me and stu!2it took two people, two really big guys to get him o!2after that, I mean, I've been kicked2after that incident he just terrorized me around the school and stu!.

3. Findings: Mary's story As I re-read Mary's transcripts describing her bad school experiences I considered how teaching children who are physically and sexually abused would a!ect her personally and as a teacher. As I probed further I discovered that her background was a motivating factor in her wanting to become a teacher. She stated later that she wanted to give underprivileged children a better start than she'd had, particularly in reference to the types of harassment she had encountered while in high school. Mary was determined to `work for the promotion of myself and women and any minority or even anybody who has had to su!er2a She believed that her past gave her the tools and strength to understand the lives of children living in the innercity. She declared, `it is kind of incredible, I kind of absorb everything now. Actually, I think it made me a stronger persona. Mary felt that her interactions with the students were really unique and that her own di$cult childhood helped her create a special relationship with them. She indicated that 2some of these kids bond with me. It is really weird, cause they don't bond with everybody2. Somehow they can sense that I have had pain in my life too. I don't know how, but maybe it is how I respond to them2maybe in the way I respond to their needs2We understand each other. The internship year profoundly a!ected Mary's outlook on teaching and life in general. Several topics and themes emerged over the course of the interviews, weekly re#ections, and weekly transcribed discussions. Some of these involved Mary's interaction's with people (children, teachers, principals), her views on the environment (inner-city, university, classroom), and her con#icts with herself (worries about teaching skills, concerns about maturity). To make sense of these I created individual folders for each of the above topics, coded speci"c experiences, re-examined the data, and began searching for common themes. I found much evidence of `con#icta in Mary, with the environment, with self, and with the others around her. Although

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each con#ict was unique and separate, they also tended to weave in and out of each other. It seemed to me that three kinds of con#ict significantly a!ected Mary's internship: those involved in understanding and dealing with the life experiences encountered by children in the inner-city, those with herself in establishing a balance between being a friend to her pupils and becoming their respected teacher, and those with the university over the failings she saw in the Urban/Multicultural Education program. Throughout all of her experiences, Mary maintained a "rm belief that she had been `calleda to become a teacher and that she was determined to complete her student-teaching experiences, no matter how adverse she perceived things to be. 3.1. Conyict with the environment During the "rst interview, Mary expressed con"dence in her ability to tackle the internship, believing that both her childhood experiences and her 2 1/2 years of working in a day-care center had amply prepared her for the upcoming semester. `I worked in daycare for two and a half years, I kind of know what works and what doesn't worka, she said, `I mean kids are kids, and some things work and some things don'ta. Later she suggested that she had `a lot of con"dence with children. It's like I'm secure with the child because they're naive, they're innocent, and I have a lot of trust and a lot of con"dence with thema. With respect to her university preparation, Mary also expressed con"dence and excitement that she would soon be able to demonstrate her skills. She stated: As far as being prepared for methods and stu!, yeah, there's a lot of things I learned. You know, I like integration, but as you showed us how to do thematic units, you know, that's a whole new style of teaching that I love, and my teacher, he likes thematic units, so I'm really excited. Unfortunately, Mary's belief and con"dence in herself wavered greatly as the year progressed and the `realitiesa and responsibilities of teaching in the inner-city became clearer. Her opening statement during the second interview summarized the shock

and disbelief she felt about how her students lived in the inner-city. Indeed, she devoted most of her second interview to itemizing the impact on her of 13 incidents in the lives of her students and the environments they lived in. She commented: My teacher said that almost every child in the school has either seen someone slain or in the process of being slain. They sleep in bathtubs, deal with drugs and sexual abuse2. I was prepared for a lot of this but I didn't realize that there was that much violence. It is a lot worse than I ever thought it could be. Later, she described her new understanding of the inner-city and how it had changed her world view. She stated: People really do get killed. [There is] rape and sexual abuse of children when they are small. I think that a lot of that euphoric world view of mine has been shattered. I think I have been awakened. I don't look at the world the same2even in three months2it has been a real eye opener. A particularly disturbing story told by Mary in both an interview and in one of her written re#ections involved taking the students on a "eld trip. During lunch, a 9-year-old student came by and pinched Mary on the bottom. In describing this incident, Mary stated: He has been sexually abused. His mother is a prostitute. His mother's street name is Cocaine. She is known for stealing drugs, prostitution, you know, this child has seen a lot. And he came up and pinched me on the bottom and I didn't know what to do2 All I know is he was looking at me and the next thing I know, he runs up, pinches me on the butt and sits back down. My initial reaction was just to laugh because I was shocked. This particular event reminded Mary of her past: `being the victim of sexual harassment for many years, this is not something I have taken lightlya. Mary kept thinking about the incident to try and

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better understand both the child and her own response. Her "rst thoughts about being pinched included feeling guilty and worrying whether she `wore her jeans too tightlya. Then she decided that it was the child's home environment that was to blame. Mr. Rice, Mary's supervising teacher, later re#ected to her that `this child's mom was a prostitute. She would have orgy parties and has been seen naked in the community begging for sex2These kids see so much that they learn so fasta. The young boy was suspended from school for several days. Later stories revealed how the 8-year-old children in her third grade came to class. `Sometimes they look so angry at the world that they could kill somebody. I mean they walk in and slam their books down on the desk2just "lled with ragea. Indeed, Mary expressed concern about whether two children might hit her. `One child lashed out at mea, she said, `he totally de"es me. He has no respect for me whatsoevera. Additionally, children routinely talked about and even attempted suicide. In Mary's class, two children had threatened to commit suicide. Mary wrote in one of her written re#ections, `Jade has a long vertical scar on one wrist and a fresh scab on the other2This child has been in foster care because his mom is a drug addicta. One young girl who had talked about suicide had recently been threatened by a man living in the projects who wanted to kill her. Mary claimed that `she was really scared of him. The child's mother is in jail [and her] Dad just got out of jaila. During our "nal interview, Mary described another 8-year-old who was suspended for `cussing me out two weeks ago and calling me a fucking whore2After she came back from the suspension she cussed Mr. Rice out. She called him a bitcha. Verbal abuse among Mary's third grade students was an ongoing problem for Mary. Children accused each others' mothers of using crack, smoking marijuana and being prostitutes. Mary described her students as saying, &Your mom smokes chronic', which is marijuana, &your mom's a prostitute,' &your mom's in jail2' Having a child come up to me and say, &Do you know Edward's mom? Her name is

Cocaine, she beat him with an extension cord last night? The incidents of sexual, physical, and verbal abuse appeared to be a common part of the environment with which Mary had to deal. Mr. Rice, her mentoring teacher, had told her at the beginning of the year that `so many of the girls had been sexually abuseda. Mary wrote, `There was one child in that class whose name is Addie and she even drew graphic pictures of male parts and even showed what they looked [like] erecta. When asked to describe one of her students during the third interview, Mary outlined the life of a third grader who had been raped in kindergarten and whose mother was a drug addict and in jail. During her last interview, Mary described the `drive-by drilla procedure which the elementary students at her school practiced as a result of a drive-by shooting and the subsequent death of a kindergarten girl the previous year. Mary described the procedures as follows: `It is where you actually stop, drop, cover, look, and listen. That is a drive-by drill in case we actually have a shooting and you go in a positiona. In describing these incidents Mary re#ected her di$culty in understanding the children's environment and how this a!ected the pupils' capacity to learn. During one written re#ection, Mary described this dilemma: Most of the time their minds are elsewhere, maybe focused on the person they saw slain the night before. Maybe they are too tired because they have been kept up by gun shots or they were sexually abused the night before. This doesn't happen to a few, it's most of the class. The few are the lucky. During one discussion session with other interns, Mary reached a critical point. She asked for help in dealing with the situations she was encountering, `what could a teacher do to break the boundaries, with all the violence and stu! [in order to] actually teach all these great things I have learned to doa. Unfortunately for Mary, the point was perceived as a complaint about her miserable experience. The others only made suggestions about how she might

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better cope with the situation. Her response to me during the interview was, `It is hard to relate to people who don't see what I see every day. It is really hard because most of the people in our class who give advice don't work in the school that I am working ina. 3.2. Conyict with self Mary's con#ict with `selfa arose from a desire to be the best teacher that she could be. She stated that she was a `perfectionista who wished to emulate the `con"dence and gracea portrayed by her mentoring teacher, Mr. Rice. During the initial interview she said, `I want to have that grace, and I know it takes experience to get to that, but I just want to have that spontaneity2 I want to learn how to do what he does so gracefullya. Her school experiences, however, led her to re-examine the potential value of the stern assertiveness she had previously disliked so much. She came to wonder whether her early attempts to win the children's respect through compassion and friendliness actually caused her more di$culty in the long run. By the end of the internship year she concluded that the students needed discipline, and that they did not respect anyone who was too lenient. Early in our "rst interview Mary announced her desire to gain `respecta from the children without having to portray the sternness that her mentoring teacher did. She stated that he was more stern than she was, but hoped that she might `learn a way to have children respect me without having to be so sterna. Mary viewed her role with the students as being a compassionate relater able to accept and absorb some of their pain, and so maintain some of her own childlike qualities. She stated early that she was struggling with trying to be an adult, and I still have this kid part in me and it's like tug-a-war inside, ya know, like wanting to be an adult and still being a child, because there's a lot of me that still wants to play with them and not be that adult "gure role-model type person. And I struggle with that and I hope that my expectation is that I kind of make that transition from that childlike person in me to become that adult.

Mary was perceptive enough to realize that she was not behaving in a manner satisfying to her mentoring teacher. She wondered to me whether she was being too lenient with the children. As Mary noted, `I feel I'm disappointing my teacher sometimes. I get that really uncomfortable feeling that I'm being too lenienta. She indicated also that she was not as strict as he was and was in fact, more playful. I think that's what they like about me, &cause see I make faces, I wink, that's just me, and I don't know if I'm being immature or not, but that's just my "rst response, you know, and I don't know, I'm kind of playful. Mary viewed her role in the classroom as one that enabled her to relate to the pupils in a compassionate manner. She wrote about a child in her class: She is very open about her home situation and really seeks empathy. It is really strange how many of these kids have opened up to me. It's almost like they can sense that I have su!ered too. It's an amazing bond that I feel honored to share. During her second interview Mary said, `I have never loved being a teacher so much until this yeara. She was becoming increasingly aware of the tremendous responsibility that teaching held. She indicated this in a written re#ection: I must say that the past three and a half months have been incredible. I have grown more in this period of time than any other point in my life. The responsibility of teaching is beyond one's belief until they have lived through the experience. Having responsibilities in a child's life, especially one that has not even lived a decade is a remarkable challenge. Mary was also beginning to realize that she had not gained the desired respect she had anticipated, perhaps due to a failure to establish clear boundaries between herself and her pupils. They still perceived her as trying to be their friend. Mary indicated that `I am struggling right now. I feel like

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those boundaries are being crossed all the time. It is confusing to them and it is confusing to me. And so when I had them that day, I talked sternly to them2a She consciously decided that she needed to establish a `teacher imagea. Despite having indicated this need for change, Mary continued to struggle with her con#ict over self-identi"cation. I have struggled being their friend and their teacher. They do see me more as a friend, someone they trust. Not having the &real' teacher role has brought me a level closer to them. I hope I never lose the trust, because it is essential to their learning. Mary eventually realized that boundaries were essential to the needs of her students. She commented `they want that structure and boundaries. When they have that, they think you are the authoritya. Later she explained the necessity of establishing the boundaries not so much for her own sake, but rather for the sake of the children: I have been more structured and more strict. I don't give as many second chances. You are not supposed to give these children lots of chances2 maybe just one chance. That may seem harsh, but it is what they need. They need those boundaries because they will walk all over you if you don't set those boundaries. And they are happier. They want discipline. It is like they want you to 2they want discipline. It is like they hunger for it. In order to create the boundaries she felt were needed, Mary had to maintain a seriousness that was unnatural for her. She concluded: I de"nitely think I need to be more aggressive and stronger. I guess I have really made myself consciously be more stern. I can be stern and then turn around and laugh because I can't believe2 I'm not really mad. It takes so much to make me angry. At the end of her intern year, and after completing 6 weeks of teaching alone, Mary achieved the `respecta from the students. During the last interview I asked what advice she had for incoming

interns and her immediate response was, `I would tell them, if they were in the inner-city, [to] be assertive and really stand your ground and show the kids that you are a teachera. It appeared that throughout Mary's internship her main con#ict was with herself over her selfidentity to be a &teacher' or a &compassionate friend'. By the end of the year Mary increasingly viewed herself as more professionally minded and career-oriented. Realizing that the role of a teacher is multifaceted, she stated, `It is amazing how many roles a teacher must take2a teacher, a policeman, the parent, a social worker, and I could go on2a She concluded one interview with the realization that she had fully made the transition she had hoped for. I am becoming more career oriented. I have grown from a college student to a professional. And not being secure and con"dent in teaching and now being con"dent2I have learned more this year than I have in the past four years. 3.3. Conyict with others Mary's con#ict with others centered on her disillusionment with the university and the Urban/Multicultural program in which she was enrolled. As stated during her "rst interview, Mary's attitude toward the university was such that she felt prepared and, indeed, inspired to engage in the internship. However, as time passed and problems arose she began to express frustration and even anger toward the university because it had not adequately prepared her for the inner-city placement. One particular written re#ection described fully her dissatisfaction: This week I have a lot of anger that I need to release. I am really upset with the program and it is really frustrating. In the past couple of weeks, I have been emotionally drained. For as long as I can remember, I have done nothing but dream of helping the poor. I am so angry I want to scream. I could not imagine how rough life must be that an 8 and a 9 year-old would want to die. I am more angry

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at myself and the program I'm in because I was not prepared for this. Urban Multicultural is a program that emphasizes urban education in its curriculum, but it fails to tell students how to deal with the realities of these children. Teaching is the easy part, getting through the boundaries of these children is hard! I don't care how great a teacher you are, you cannot teach until you break through the boundaries. Why hasn't the program that focuses on these types of schools ever trained us to deal with these types of problems? Children's books and thematic units are great things to learn about, but how can we use these if we cannot even break the boundary of anger and hate that separates the child from learning? I feel like, what should be the most important part of the program is missing. Clearly she was disturbed about her lack of preparation. During her third and fourth interviews, anger continued to surface. She believed that the program should have equipped her with the necessary skills to work with children who were deemed `at riska. She maintained that the university `should have given me something that I didn't geta and her advice to anyone coming into the program was to seek training that speci"cally helps in dealing with the kinds of children `who are crack babiesa and `who have complete "ts2and start throwing tantrumsa. Mary claimed that she could `handle all the ugly things in these children's livesa but `the program needs2to help inner-city teachers progress through these children's baggage to really help them learna. She maintained that the university did not teach her any `strategies to move beyond the baggage [of the child's life]a. During the "nal interview, Mary described how the amount of university course work, particularly during the "rst semester, stressed her and the other interns. She felt that she could cope with and maintain straight A's. Nonetheless, the constant shu%ing back and forth between being a `teachera and being a `studenta prevented her from being `viewed as a teachera in the eyes of her own students. Each Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, Mary left

the school and became a student at the university. Mary contended that her pupils realized that she was only a student and not a `reala teacher. She stated: I felt like I was only here three and a half days a week and I was constantly leaving and coming back and as a preservice teacher2the children didn't really see me as a teacher. They saw me more as a college student who was coming in and out. Mary summarizes her experiences and the relationship between herself and the university as follows: `2nothing in college prepares you for this. Not for the inner-city at least.a. 3.4. Sense of purpose As the internship progressed, Mary increasingly relied on her sense of purpose and `higher selfa. Generally, she maintained a positive attitude throughout the year, albeit wavering several times when faced with the enormous problems in the lives of her pupils. In learning to cope with her pupils' experiences, `[I] learned to deal with it in my own way. I have kind of become desensitized to ita. Although she later expressed a fear about this occurring, she realized that it was the only way in which she could continue and not become `paralyzeda. She argued, `I was afraid that this was going to happen, but you almost have to. If you don't, you can't live your own life and be sane if you knew exactly what happened all this timea. During her last interview Mary articulated a sense of great satisfaction in realizing her purpose. Throughout the year she knew that she wanted to work with children. `I always knew I wanted to work with kids, but I didn't know if it was teaching or social work or child psychologya. She had come to know and enjoy the `art and science of teachinga. Mary also discussed her sense of purpose as it related to her religious beliefs. She revealed how during the year she had `pray[ed] to God that He would give me strength to get through thisa. Mary concluded her last interview by claiming to `realize that this is my calling2 that I was called to do this and not that I am stuck in it. This is what I am supposed to do. This is my calling from Goda.

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4. Discussion Mary's narrative is a powerful re#ection of her experiences while student teaching in an inner-city school. She described her experiences, confrontations, joys and moments of truth. Her stories illustrate the immense fortitude, dedication, and perseverance she needed to tackle her challenges. She articulated her need to be heard. Few teachers, and even fewer preservice teachers, experience the kind of incidents that Mary did. Her story is rich and elicits many questions. With only one participant, however, "ndings and implications are necessarily limited. It is perhaps obvious to say that teaching in inner-city schools can be extremely di$cult. Components of the problematic situation often include poor funding, inadequate supplies, high rates of sexual and physical abuse, high incidences of violence, crime and drugs, racial tension, and the often low value placed on education (Kretovics & Nussel, 1991). Teachers willing to try and overcome these di$culties in order to teach children have to be admired. Preservice teachers willing to enter this environment deserve only the highest praise. But they do need to be monitored for risk of early burnout. Most student-teachers undergoing school placements "nd it a time of anxiety and self-doubt. Great personal changes are taking place. In this study, these processes were observed through Mary's experiences. She described high levels of anxiety, frustration, and, in some cases, fear. Mary also described exhilaration as she achieved acceptance of her new realities. The student-teacher in this study articulated a sense of purpose and determination not mentioned in previous research. Although prior studies by Pilard (1992), Sitter (1982), Fuller (1975), Iannaccone (1963), and others, have attested to the di$culties and uncertainties experienced by student-teachers, these studies were limited to 13}20 weeks of observation in suburban, middleclass environments. Previous research on student-teachers has encompassed a wide variety of topics and concerns. The results from the present study have corroborated some of these "ndings but disputed others. For

instance, I found that Mary had to adopt a more authoritarian set of attitudes toward discipline than is typical in order to establish boundaries for the pupils. She also had to satisfy the requirements of mentoring-teachers. Mary strongly recommended that future interns not waste time before establishing clear boundaries with the students, as it helped to de"ne her role as a teacher and not a studentteacher. Glassberg and Sprinthall (1980) concluded in their work: `Results indicate a multiplicity of concrete and clearly negative "ndings*studentteachers become more authoritarian, rigid, impersonal, restrictive, arbitrary, bureaucratic and custodial by the end of their student-teaching experiencesa ( p. 14). As noted, Mary did adopt a more authoritarian and restrictive nature. However, she was not rigid, impersonal and custodial by the end of her student-teaching experience. Indeed, Mary felt su$ciently empowered by her newly acquired skills and abilities to be eager to begin teaching. This may have been partly due to the length and duration of the internship in this study when compared to the more usual 9}12 week student-teaching experience. This study supports Walberg (1968) who found that student-teachers were in con#ict between their desire to create friendly rapport with pupils and their need to maintain authority and discipline. Balancing between rapport and authority caused much con#ict throughout the year. The original study (Rushton, 1997) clearly demonstrated this internal con#ict between wanting to be a friend and de"ning oneself as a teacher. Mary recommended that the university advise future interns to establish clear boundaries with their pupils as soon as they begin teaching, rather than trying to become their friend. The results of this study supported and then went beyond those of Lantz (1964) regarding the importance of developing self-con"dence in student-teachers. Lantz (1964) maintained that student-teachers should be placed in non-threatening classrooms so that their sense of self-e$cacy could grow (see also Bandura, 1997). It might be assumed that student-teachers prefer being placed in environments that do not threaten their selfesteem. Yet, the severity of practice teaching in inner-city schools challenges the generality of this

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assumption. Mary's self-e$cacy grew despite (or because of ) the major challenges she faced in the classroom. Her "rst challenge was to accept the con#icts in the children's lives. Next, she was forced to embrace very di$cult situations that tapped her own unresolved inner con#icts. Yet she came through with a tough- minded commitment, and it can almost be said that the circumstances forced Mary to build her own con"dence (for further details regarding this process, see Bandura 1997). Mentoring-teachers are crucial for developing self-esteem in student interns. The importance of good mentors in the inner-city is even more critical. Nevertheless, in this study, Mary's sense of growth, maturity, and well-being developed as a result of con#ict resolution. This student-teacher rose above the con#icts and di$culties she encountered, not as a function of her mentoring teacher, but more as a function of accepting the dissonance that the harsh realities of teaching in the inner-city brought. Mary described her mentoring-teacher as being `very sterna and often harsh toward the students. She did comment that as she became more serious herself, Mr. Rice began to acknowledge her more. This reinforced Mary's desire to set clear boundaries for herself and for the students. The results from this study support Iannaccone's (1963) "ndings, that `student-teaching is seen as a transitional period during which the student's perspectives undergo a radical changea (p. 73). He claimed that as student-teachers gained con"dence in their abilities, they entered the third and "nal stage of teaching development. He maintained that social distances decreased between studentteachers and mentoring-teachers as they spend more time together and as the student-teachers make the transition to becoming teachers. Mary typi"es this early study, as the same `radical changea took place. However, each preservice student's relationship with her mentoring teacher is highly personal and no overly general conclusion can be drawn. One big di!erence between the results found here and those from previous studies is the time of onset of the preservice teachers' concerns about the needs of their pupils. Fuller (1975) indicated that inexperienced student-teachers are usually focused on themselves and not their students. Only with ex-

perience do student-teachers become concerned with issues. According to Fuller (1975), over time, student-teachers pass through three stages of development with stage one characterized as concerned with self, stage two as concerned with teaching tasks, and stage three (which few reached) as a search for knowledge `beyond the needs of the momenta (Sitter, 1982, p. 205). The "ndings of the present study, then, do not support Fuller's (1975) notion that the speci"c concerns or issues follow a developmental sequence beginning with concerns for self and ending with concerns for others. Indeed, the reverse was found. The intense nature of the environment forced the interns to focus on the needs of their pupils from the very outset. Fuller's stage one, concern for self, was not apparent with Mary. She was focused from the outset on the emotional well-being of her pupils. Mary's only concern for herself was re#ected in her frustration at not being able to improve the pupils' living conditions. Thus, contrary to Fuller's (1975) observations, the concerns for self and others did not occur in a `fairly regular sequencea but took place simultaneously and were ongoing throughout the year. Mary's narrative and experiences may have been di!erent from those of other preservice teachers because she participated in a program that took 5 years to complete and concluded in a Masters degree. The Urban Multicultural program in which she took part went beyond the usual transmission of `teaching skillsa to include material on the cultural and economic circumstances of her pupils. Nonetheless, Mary felt it had not gone far enough. She felt unprepared for what she encountered, especially in regard to the physical, verbal, and sexual abuse that pervaded the school atmosphere. Perhaps greater support systems need to be in place to help the preservice teacher understand and deal with the various situations better. Individual counseling both from the university and, perhaps, from within the school itself might prove bene"cial. The university supervising professor might serve as a mediator between the classroom, the school and the expectations of the university. Mary complained that her supervisor came in once a month and, although he encouraged her, he never addressed the `reala issues.

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Further research might be carried out to explore the impact that interning in the inner-city has on preservice teachers. Numerous questions arise from this case study. `How do we e!ectively educate preservice teachers to handle di$cult situations without "rst-hand experience?a, `How do we teach them to deal with the unusual stresses that the inner-city schools provide?a, `What long-range impact will this year have on Mary?a, `Did this year make her more resilient and better able to manage?a, `How e!ective a teacher will she be next year and in the years to come?a and, `Will she even pursue a job in the inner-city?a Mary's personal experiences and prior practical knowledge were unique. On a personal level, she had experienced some of the hardships her students encountered. Her passion to teach grew out of her personal experiences which in turn helped her to formulate beliefs regarding `at-riska students and teaching in general. Future interns might learn from these experiences and build upon them to give them hope that they too will get through and achieve e$cacy. Mentoring teachers might also learn from Mary's story to discover just how di$cult a time this can be for preservice teachers as well as the powerful in#uence they can have on aspiring young teachers. Finally, teacher training personnel, university instructors, supervisors, and school evaluators might glean fresh insights into the lives led by preservice teachers in the inner-city schools.

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