The Struggle for Teacher Education: International Perspectives on Governance and Reforms

Reform of teacher education is en vogue worldwide today due to the widespread belief that teacher education has the power to change traditional modes of schooling, educating new teachers who will be capable of improving the knowledge standard of children and boost the economic power of nations. The Struggle for Teacher Education brings together conceptual, comparative and empirical studies from Australia, England, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, South Africa and South America to explore the ways in which professional education has been positioned in a reactive mode. The contributors discuss how teacher education is a contested division in higher education and look at how current reform efforts may limit the potential and work of teacher education, highlighting why this point needs more attention. Moreover, the collection reveals how teacher education's authorship on teacher professionalism may be weakened or strengthened by current reform drives and offers alternative models on how to rethink reforming teacher education.