Cultural Myths in the Making of a Teacher: Biography and Social Structure in Teacher Education

Deborah Britzman believes that recent theoretical discussions of the role of education in the reproduction of the social system, while illuminative, need to be grounded in descriptions of particular aspects of the educative process. The author addresses this need by drawing on her experiences as a teacher/educator to offer an analysis of the reproductive mechanisms at work in teacher education. She describes the way in which teachers' personal histories interact with common myths of our culture to maintain current teaching practices. By becoming conscious of these mechanisms, Britzman argues, student teachers can gain a critical perspective and, hence, control of the social mechanisms which otherwise tend to control them.