Exploring variations in teacher education

Preparing teachers for schools and classrooms is the main goal of teacher education across the globe. However, the duration, content and structure of teacher education programmes vary across contexts. Different modes of government intervention, definitions of the teacher as a professional and the role of teacher education institutions, amongst other features, are to be considered as well as policy development internationally (Flores 2016). Discussing how teacher professionalism has been subject to processes of redefinition in several settings, Menter and Flores (2021, 121) identify forces for convergence in policy development associated with the influence of OECD exercises such as PISA and TALIS, but also with transnational agreements such as the Bologna process in Europe, with implications for ‘new alignments between diverse systems of teacher education, for example in terms of course structures, durations and credit points’. They also mention forces of divergence which are related to issues of national identity (e.g. distinctive approaches to languages and language education, cultural diversity, and citizenship education). Context does matter. As Craig (2016) argues, the structure of teacher education internationally has been shaped not only by history and culture but is increasingly dictated by politics. Understanding the purpose, focus and outcomes of teacher education implies, therefore, the consideration of its various dimensions. In a paper published in the Special Issue celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the EJTE, Ling (2017) contends that looking at teacher education entails ‘an iterative process rather than a linear one and needs to be backwards, forwards, inside-out and outside-in somewhat simultaneously, because it is complex, recursive and has multiple layers’. The papers included in this issue illustrate some of the components that need to be considered when discussing the complex and multifaceted nature of teacher education. They focus on a specific, and in some cases contextual, dimension but they also point to the need to include a wider range of key elements in debates around the content and pedagogy of teacher education.

In the first paper, ‘Differences in teacher education programmes and their outcomes across Didaktik and curriculum traditions’, Tobias Christoph Werler and Armend Tahirsylaj discuss the content and goals of teacher education in light of different orientations. They draw on data from the Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics (TEDS-M), with samples from Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and the US, focusing, in particular, on the opportunities to learn and beliefs about teaching methods. The authors explore variations in teacher education programmes and argue for the need for deeper analyses taking into account the cultural dimension in teacher education.

The content and pedagogy of teacher education are also the focus of the second paper. Tal Carmi and Eran Tamir, from Israel, in their paper ‘Three professional ideals: where should teacher preparation go next?’, examine models for teacher preparation focusing on issues of teacher professionalism. The authors examine three professional ideal types, namely teachers as intellectuals, master craftspeople, and artists, in discussing current landscape of teacher preparation. They acknowledge the complexity of integrating such ideals in a comprehensive model that combines the practical and the technical as well as the intellectual and the creative dimensions of learning to teach. Carmi and Tamir assert that it is necessary to further explore both the tensions and interrelations of such views in teacher education programmes.

The third paper, ‘Status versus nature of work: pre-service language teachers envisioning their future profession’, by Maria Ruohotie-Lyhty and Anne Pitkänen-Huhta, from Finland, continues the discussion around professionalism and identity in teacher education. The authors draw on a qualitative study of how student teachers envision their professional future through a visual narrative task during their first semester in language teacher education. Two main perspectives were found in student teachers’ accounts. The first focuses on the nature of the teaching profession, its desired characteristics, including social relations, and the other one encompasses issues of status. The paper ends with implications of the findings for exploring identity development in teacher education.

The next two papers address student teachers’ experience in teacher education, in particular issues of trust and professional anxiety. Jennifer Waber, Gerda Hagenauer and Lea de Zordo, in their paper ‘Student teachers’ perceptions of trust during the team practicum’, report on findings from a study carried out in Switzerland. The authors looked at student teachers’ perceptions of trust in their team partner and their mentor teacher during practicum and identified two main levels: the interpersonal and the professional. The former was mainly related to issues of openness, honesty and respect and the later was associated, amongst other features, with reliability, support and cooperation. Waber, Hagenauer and de Zordo conclude that aspects of trust in the professional dimension were more frequent than factors related to the interpersonal dimension and they examine the implications of their findings for teacher education and particularly for mentoring during practicum.

In turn, Hanneke Theelen, Antoine van den Beemt and Perry den Brok address student teachers’ professional learning in the Netherlands. In their paper ‘Enhancing authentic learning experiences in teacher education through 360-degree videos and theoretical lectures: reducing preservice teachers’ anxiety’, they analyse data drawn from authentic learning experiences combining theoretical lectures and 360-degree videos watched with virtual reality headsets. In total, 141 student teachers participated in the study. Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The authors found that the video-lecture combination has contributed to reduce professional anxiety and to increase self-efficacy. They highlight that authentic learning experiences were focused on teachers’ interpersonal behaviour providing student teachers with exemplary interpersonal teacher behaviour. Theelen, Van den Beemt and Den Brok argue for the need to invest in classroom management competence including interpersonal behaviour during teacher preparation.

In the sixth paper, ‘Student teachers’ views of competence goals in vocational teacher education’, Esa Virkkula focuses on competence-based vocational teacher education in Finland. Drawing on a small-scale mixed-method study, the author examines 117 vocational student teachers’ conceptions of competence. Virkkula found that the competence goals were helpful for student teachers to understand the diversity of the teacher’s work and the level of their own pedagogical competence. The author concludes that there is a need to provide student teachers with opportunities to reflect on their individual learning processes.

The seventh paper, Poverty-aware teacher education’, by Shoshana Steinberg and Michal Krumer-Nevo, from Israel, reports on findings from a qualitative study aimed at exploring in-service teachers’ responses when they were exposed to life stories of people in poverty during a course at a teacher education college. The authors state that many of the participants expressed stereotypical deficit models of people living in poverty. They argue that reflective reading of life stories can contribute to challenge and to change such views and they discuss their potential to further examine issues of social justice in teacher education.

The final paper, ‘Learning from professional challenges identified by school and institute-based teacher educators within the context of school–university partnership’, by Elizabeth White, Miranda Timmermans and Claire Dickerson, looks at English and Dutch teacher educators’ experiences within school-based teacher education partnerships. Drawing on thirty-five accounts, the authors examine the complexities of teacher educators’ work and they identify challenges related to guiding and assessing student-teachers; professionalism and well-being of student-teachers and teacher educators; collaborative working and quality assurance. White, Timmermans and Dickerson discuss the implications of their findings for teacher educators’ professional learning in developing collaborative practices in initial teacher education partnerships.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).