NCJ Number
93528
Date Published
1983
Length
188 pages
Annotation
This book analyzes the impact of role ambiguity on occupational socialization, based on data collected from 33 recruits in an 8-month training program for prison assistant governors (AG's) conducted by Great Britain's Prison Service.
Abstract
Following a review of occupational socialization theories, the author explains why AG's were selected to test these concepts and the research design. Participant observation, interviews, and repertory grid analysis were used to assess the attitude changes and impact of the training on a heterogeneous group of 33 recruits, of whom 4 were women. The sample had a wide age range, diverse social class and educational backgrounds, and differences in marital status. Attitudes investigated were identification with the role and idealism. The book describes patterns of change that emerged as the recruits passed through the initial training and socialization, the training course, and recruits' responses to this training. While recruits' idealism declined, socialization provided no substitute conception of the job, and recruits had no clear and agreed notion of the work they were to do as AG's. The instructors were also afflicted by the absence of an agreed set of goals, and a profound sense of aimlessness surrounded the training. Recruits saw their training as largely purposeless, but paradoxically believed themselves better prepared to do the job as AG at the end. The book's final chapter discusses the failure of socialization theories in this situation -- a heterogeneous collection of individuals was not transformed into a functionally homogeneous group -- and attributes it largely to the peculiarly ambiguous role image of the AG. Footnotes accompany each chapter. Graphs, tables, and an index are supplied.