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research suggests that this area of schooling may be underrepresented
in the teaching practice and the orientation of PGCE courses. The
teaching of multi-racial classes on teaching practice may be taken
as indications of an inner city school experience. Despite the fact
that 3θ% of students overall report such experience the percentages
vary from 52.5% of social science students and 50.0% of FE students
to 30.8% language students, 27.4% of PE and 26.7% of primary (Table
4.24 F76). Method department is an influential factor here but
the university department itself is significant for 70% of London
students report such experiences compared with 19.2% from Oxbridge
and 15.6% from Wales (Table 4.25 P75)∙ Even allowing for the non-
random location of multi-racial classes throughout the country such
proportions cannot be explained by availability. Whilst, for example,
London has perforce to make available teaching practice in inner
city schools to
its students jit does so in such a way as to control
the experience
differentially
its student population which
as the research shows is
already distincive as to age and experience
(1982 P30).
Their findings point to
the degree of control that is exerted by
method
departments in the
location of school experience and additional
data reveals them as potential sources of resistance to change.
Findings on the organisation of teaching practice are perhaps revealing
of the extent to which
university tutors are influenced by their
own socialisation ‘’when
the responses were examined by department
it was clear that most
people in most departments thought the best
к
pattern was the one in which they currently worked (Ch 9 P19β).
It
may
well be that it is this habituation factor that not only
supports
the status quo but equally underlines the impossibility