Teacher Socialization in Physical Education: A Scoping Review of Literature K. Andrew R. Richards, Colin G. Pennington, and Oleg A. Sinelnikov Occupational socialization theory (OST) has framed research on physical education (PE) teacher recruitment, professional preparation, and ongoing socialization in schools for nearly 40 yr. Using scoping-review methods, the authors sought to understand the current scope of published research on PE-teacher socialization using OST by descriptively and thematically reviewing 111 identified studies published in English-language journals between 1979 and 2015. Results indicate a predomi- nance of qualitative, cross-sectional research related to PE-teacher socialization, most of which was conducted by a relatively small group of scholars. Themes derived from the analysis of study findings communicate the complexity of teacher socialization experiences and are used to develop recommendations for future research and practice that work toward helping improve teachers’ lived experiences while creating beer contexts in which students can learn. The paper concludes with a discussion of extending OST research to understand the recruitment, professional education, and socialization of kinesiology faculty members and professionals across subdisciplines. Keywords: identity, instructional practices, sociology, teacher education, teacher development, occupational socialization theory Socialization is a broad process through which individuals learn the skills, knowledge, values, and norms of social groups or institutions of which they are seeking to be members (Billingham, 2007). Occupational socialization refers to a specific branch of socialization theory and research that relates to ways in which individuals develop skills, behaviors, competencies, and beliefs recognized as impoant to a paicular context of employment (Bauer & Erdogan, 2011). It is through socialization that individuals make sense of the social and political processes that frame their organizational experiences (Madlock & Chory, 2014). Occupa- tional socialization had guided the study of how individuals assimi- late into a variety of professions including teaching (Pogodzinski, 2012), athletic training (Thrasher, Walker, Hankemeier, & Pitney, 2015), and nursing (Price, Doucet, & McGills Hall, 2014). In kinesiology, however, the only subdisciplinary field that has dedi- cated aention to the recruitment, education, and ongoing sociali- zation of new members is that of physical education (PE; Richards, Templin, & Graber, 2014). Grounded in occupational socialization theory (OST), the study of teacher socialization in PE continues to be a robust area of scholarship, with expansion and diversification occurring on an international level over the past 40 years (Richards & Gaudreault, 2017). Lawson (1986) explained that OST “includes all the kinds of socialization that initially influence persons to enter the field of physical education and that later are responsible for their perceptions and actions as teacher educators and teachers” (p. 107). Researchers using OST adopt a dialectical framework for consid- ering socialization by acknowledging teachers’ sense of agency and ability to resist the individuals and institutions seeking to socialize them (Schempp & Graber, 1992). This is in contrast to structural-functionalist views of socialization (e.g., Meon, Reader, & Kendall, 1957) in which it was assumed that individuals would be passively socialized into group membership to fit the needs of existing social institutions. It has fuher been acknowl- edged that socialization is a nonlinear process because individuals do not experience all forms of socialization at the same time or in the same way (Lawson, 1986). Neveheless, a three-phase model including acculturation, professional socialization, and organiza- tional socialization has typically been adopted to temporally classify the types of socialization PE teachers experience across their lives and careers (Richards et al., 2014). Acculturation represents socialization that occurs during for- mative education and before an individual’s formal decision to enter the PE profession (Lawson, 1983b). During this time, prospective recruits engage in an apprenticeship of observation (Loie, 1975) whereby they develop initial understandings of what it means to be a PE teacher through interactions with teachers, coaches, family members, and other socializing agents (Cuner- Smith, 2017). Professional socialization begins when individuals enroll in a PE teacher education (PETE) program (Lawson, 1983b). Through PETE, recruits learn the knowledge, skills, and disposi- tions deemed impoant for teaching PE by teacher education faculty members in a paicular program (Richards et al., 2014). Individuals begin organizational socialization when they transition into the teaching workforce. School cultures are contextually bound and socially negotiated among the teachers in a paicular school (Richards, 2015). The experience of PE teachers is fuher complicated by marginalization and isolation from colleagues (Kougioumtzis, Patriksson, & Stråhlman, 2011). While previous aicles have provided conceptual reviews of research on PE-teacher socialization (e.g., Richards et al., 2014), no aempts have been made to comprehensively identify, categorize, and review studies through systematic or scoping-review method- ologies. Scoping reviews are “concerned with contextualizing knowledge in terms of identifying the current state of understand- ing; identifying the sos of things we know and do not know; and then seing this within policy and practice contexts” (Anderson, Richards is with the Dept. of Kinesiology an Community Health, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL. Pennington is with the Dept. of Kinesiology, Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA. Sinelnikov is with the Dept. of Kinesiology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL. Richards ([email protected]) is corre- sponding author. 86 Kinesiology Review, 2019, 8, 86-99 0003 © 2019 Human Kinetics, Inc. SCHOLARLY ARTICLE Page 2 of 15 Page 2 of 15 Allen, Peckham, & Goodwin, 2008, p. 10). McEvoy, MacPhail, and Heikinaro-Johansson (2015) fuher explain that scoping re- views O’Brien’s (2010) recommendations, the first two authors met weekly during the literature-gathering process to discuss key search Review of PE-Teacher Socialization 87 Page 1 / 15