Discourses about School-based Mathematics Teacher Education in Finland and Sweden

Abstract

In this cross-case study we focus on school-based teacher education in Sweden and Finland. Through the use of focus-group interviews with mathematics teacher educators in Finland and Sweden, the study shows that there are substantial differences in how school-based teacher education is introduced and portrayed in the discourse about teacher education and prospective teachers' learning. The school-based teacher education among the Finnish groups is made relevant in relation to several aspects of prospective teachers' learning. In the Swedish groups, school-based teacher education is portrayed as an organizational problem and few aspects of prospective teachers' learning are brought into the discourse. The results cannot be generalized to the two countries but show interesting conceptualizations of school-based education potentially useful for teacher educators and scholars.

Keywords:

• Finland
• mathematics
• school-based teacher education
• Sweden

Notes

¹Discourse is a complex concept and used in many different ways within different research traditions (Ryve, 2011). In this study it is used to refer to a special ways of interacting with the use of specific words, metaphors, and categories (Sfard, 2008).

²The reason having more data from Sweden relates to the fact that all three authors live in Sweden and are fluent in Swedish while only one of us is fluent in Finnish. This implies that it is much easier and less expensive for us to collect and transcribe data from Sweden. However, the quantitative difference in data between the countries does not influence the analytical points and results put forward in this article.

³We recognize that figuring out what is a metaphor and what is not a metaphor is far from trivial (cf. e.g., Pramling, 2006).

⁴It is important to make a distinction between university practice schools where most of the students' practice takes place, and the school practice in ordinary schools outside the university as the teacher educators portray them quite differently. The examples in this section concern ordinary schools.

⁵The words of supervisors and mentors are used interchangeably.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andreas Ryve

Andreas Ryve, School of Education, Mälardalen University

Kirsti Hemmi

Kirsti Hemmi, School of Education, Mälardalen University

Mats Börjesson

Mats Börjesson, Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University.