This study was conducted to examine how teachers develop their orientations to and strategies for addressing existing gender relations. Under investigation were the messages preservice teachers encountered in a Catholic Church-sponsored, State-regulated teacher education program in Bavaria, and the processes involved in students' political socialization and preparation for playing active or inactive roles in the politics of gender. Germany as the research setting is important because the system has always discriminated against women. Data were collected using ethnographic methods--involving observations and interviews conducted with 45 male and female preservice teachers. According to the data analysis, preservice teachers entered the program with preconceived notions of gender relations derived from the way they had been socialized previously--both at home and in schools. Twenty-one students were categorized as conservatives, 12 as liberal feminists, and 9 as radical feminists. The main body of the document discusses: prospective teachers' conceptions of gender relations; plans for political action by conservatives, liberal feminists, and radical feminists; messages about gender relations encountered in the teacher education program; and the program's influence on students' perspectives and orientations. (Contains approximately 50 references.) (LL)