Abstract
This article examines the tension between qualified tradespersons undergoing a mature-age career change into teaching, vis-à-vis their social relationships with their field-based classroom supervisors in Victorian secondary schools. Insights into the various sources of the tension are gained from the points of view of a cohort of 16 mature-age adults, who each entered teaching possessing a healthy prior occupational identity. The data were derived from a two-year participant observation study including in-depth personal interviews. Hitherto unexamined anomalies in the supervision process are discussed, especially with reference to the powerful effect of a tradesperson's prior occupational self-identity on the social dynamics of the classroom supervision process. The article concludes that mature-age adults, when passing through a status passage career transition, find the process far more problematic than expected.