Occupational Socialization Theory in Physical Education: a scoping review

Introduction: Occupational socialization theory (OST) has been the principal framework for understanding how physical education teachers are recruited, prepared, and sustained in the profession for over four decades, yet no integrative synthesis has appeared since the last comprehensive review in 2019. Objective: This scoping review, conducted following Arksey and O’Malley’s framework, mapped research applying OST in physical education between 2019 and June 2026 and examined what this body of work implies for the theory itself. Methodology: Systematic searches in Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCO, supplemented by hand‑searching specialist journals, identified sixty‑three empirical studies. Results: Qualitative designs predominated (79.4%), and most studies came from Anglophone systems (61.9%), chiefly the United States. Professional socialization was the most studied phase (42.9%), followed by organizational socialization (34.9%), acculturation (11.1%), combined‑phase studies (9.5%), and one multiple‑phase longitudinal design (1.6%). Evidence on organizational socialization, including that on teacher educators, rests mainly on Anglophone settings, whereas non‑Anglophone evidence concentrates on professional socialization. Discussion: Recent studies are associated with three theoretical movements: extension to teacher educators, a more conditional reading of wash‑out and wash‑in, and the treatment of the phases as overlapping rather than sequential pressures. These patterns are largely compatible with habitus‑based accounts; the review does not show that OST explains more than such accounts, but it identifies where its phase‑based, occupation‑specific structure adds analytic value and where it reaches its limits. Conclusions: Future research should compare OST with alternative frameworks, use designs capable of estimating effects, and test the theory in under‑represented systems.