Abstract

Despite the popular image of Australia as a country shaped by the inland the country’s identity has been shaped by the fact that the majority of its people live close to the seaboard. However, a sizeable minority have always lived in rural areas. It was not until 1926 that Australia’s first non-metropolitan teachers colleges were established. Both teachers’ colleges were closed during the Great Depression and reopened in 1945 at the end of World War II. This paper examines student culture at Bendigo Teachers’ College from its reopening in 1945 till 1955. It especially concentrates on the programmes of professional socialisation which set out to regulate trainee teachers’ conduct and activity and produced an institutional climate more like a school, of which the college was seen as a senior extension, as opposed to that of a university.