THE STATUS OF TEACHER-TRAINING IN US AND CANADIAN SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENTS

Formal socialization of graduate students into the profession is not b alanced. All departments offer formal training in research, but teache r training is often neglected. A study conducted in 1975 showed that o nly one-half of graduate sociology departments provided teach er train ing of any sort for graduate students. In the past 20 years, however, concern for teaching excellence has increased, as has evidence of the effectiveness of teacher training. This study examines survey response s from 218 U.S. and Canadian sociology departments on the nature of te acher training for today's graduate students. Only about half of the t eaching assistants and graduate students teaching their own courses re ceive formal training, an indication of little change in the instituti onal profile of training programs. We argue that the lack of formal so cialization into the teacher role, especially compared with comprehens ive training offered in research methods, contributes to the devaluati on of teaching among sociologists.