Over the last five years, the school as a social institution has been reorganising and adapting in order to cope with the demands of an increasingly intercultural, global society ever more tightly bound to information and communication technologies. Accordingly, education authorities have chosen to bring new professionals onto the staff of primary and secondary schools to help in the development of a high-quality, holistic, understanding education. This paper is a qualitative study of the new staff members. It focuses on novice educational psychologists in secondary school guidance departments. The paper analyses the influence of initial training on the construction of their professional thought, understanding "initial training" as not only university education but also the beliefs educational psychologists have built for themselves over their lifetime, particularly during the competitive examination process they must successfully complete in order to earn a post in a public school. The article is organised into three sections. The first is entitled "University Education: An Academic Acculturation". It analyses how the most common types of university degrees for getting into the guidance profession influence novice counsellors' conception of their profession. The second, "The Competitive Examination Process: Induction by Legislation", reflects upon the importance of the competitive examination stage in acculturation in the educational psychology practices determined by legislation. Lastly, the third section, "Professional Beliefs: A (H)istory-based Construction", looks deeply into the influence that the institutionalisation and history of guidance counselling have on novice counsellors' beliefs about their profession.
