| This study analyzes and synthesizes recommendations for the preservice curriculum from six reports on teacher education in the United States since 1933. The study's main functions are to compare assumptions, contexts, and prescriptions for the pre-service curriculum, to explain differences and similarities in proposals, to identify recurrent themes, and to suggest possible comparabilities between the reports' recommendations and changes that have occurred in initial training programs.;The study concludes that each report is founded mainly on the purposes and assumptions of its own author(s) and pays little attention to other proposals in the field. The study suggests that recommendations have tended to reflect, rather than to create, the ideas and trends of their times, with the result that there has been little accumulation of knowledge or any linear development of ideas. Thus, it appears that the influence of the reports on the pre-service curriculum has probably been minimal, both in the short-term and longitudinally. These conclusions clearly raise many questions and even challenge, perhaps, the value and purpose of producing such documents. However, the study does identify certain elements and recurrent themes that represent a mainstream of authoritative opinion in the conceptualization of undergraduate training programs.;A survey of the institutional and curricular changes in teacher education during the twentieth century is initially presented in the dissertation. The study then assesses the various forces and factors that have influenced these developments and the recommendations of the reports. Once the historical context has been explained, the study proceeds to consider the selected documents themselves. Their different purposes, assumptions, and procedures are compared, and a detailed analysis of all their recommendations for the pre-service curriculum is presented, after which criticisms and reactions to each publication and resemblances between proposals and curriculum change are examined. Reasons for the apparent failure of the reports to impact more significantly on institutions and their programs are then discussed. Finally, suggestions are forwarded for reducing the barriers to change, so that future investigations may be more effective in initiating reforms. |
