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ABSTRACT
This article is a commentary on the seven articles in this special issue of EJTE on teacher quality from international perspectives. In the article, Marilyn Cochran-Smith points to differences as well as common themes and details across the articles in the issue. The article discusses the emergence of teacher quality as a global concern, including analysis of some of the assumptions underlying the issue and shifts in its meaning and valence over time. This commentary analyzes the articles in the issue according to scholarly genre and in terms of the questions addressed about teacher quality and larger professional, policy, and political goals. Cochran–Smith suggests that despite the global nature of teacher quality, what this concept actually means and how reforms are designed and implemented in particular countries vary considerably.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marilyn Cochran-Smith
Marilyn Cochran-Smith is the Cawthorne Professor of Teacher Education at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College, USA. She has been a teacher education practitioner, scholar, and researcher for more than 40 years. Her research interests include practitioner inquiry and teacher education research, practice and policy with a focus on social justice and equity. Professor Cochran-Smith is a frequent speaker nationally and internationally. She has written 10 books, seven of which have won national awards, and more than 200 articles, chapters, and editorials. Her co-authored book,Reclaiming Accountability in Teacher Education (Teachers College Press, 2018), won the 2020 Best Book Award from the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) and the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Division K’s 2019 Distinguished Contributions to Research award. Professor Cochran-Smith was also a 2020 winner of the Spencer Foundation’s Mentorship Award as well as the 2018 winner of the AERA Division K Lifetime Achievement Award. She is currently the principal investigator for a Spencer Foundation-funded study of U.S. “new graduate schools of education.” Professor Cochran-Smith is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, a former president of AERA, an AERA Fellow, and an elected member of the Laureate Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi National Education Honorary Society.