From heaven to reality through crisis: novice teachers as migrants

This study focuses on the process of novice teachers' adjustment to the teaching profession and to school culture in Israel. Forty-six beginning teachers who participated in a support program for novice teachers were interviewed extensively during their first and toward the end of their second year of teaching. The findings indicate how the transition and adaptation that novice teachers need to make in their new schools has much in common with that of immigrants in a new country. The experiences of immigrants provide a lens through which to investigate the stages that novice teachers go through. Similarities and differences between the two groups are examined, pointing to the implications of this analogy to novice teacher induction, teacher training, and attitudes of school principals. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.