Graduate School and the Self: A Theoretical View of Some Negative Effects of Professional Socialization

Examinations of the professional socialization that accompanies graduate school training generally view this socialization as developmental and do not often explore its effect on the self of students. By proposing a conceptualization of this process as resocialization, this paper discusses the possibility of negative effects on students' self. Structural features of graduate school, including the independence of student/teacher roles and relationships, the subordinate and dependent social status of graduate students, and the expectation that graduate student will be one's primary role, are theorized as interacting with individuals' undergraduate experiences, expectations of graduate school, and current self-images to affect the probability of lowered self-esteem. The possibility of such negative effects raises questions concerning the appropriateness of current methods of graduate education;