European Journal of Teacher Education
ISSN: 0261-9768 (Print) 1469-5928 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/cete20
Exploring variations in teacher education
Maria Assunção Flores
To cite this article: Maria Assunção Flores (2022) Exploring variations in teacher education,
European Journal of Teacher Education, 45:2, 151-153, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2022.2088142
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2022.2088142
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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION
2022, VOL. 45, NO. 2, 151–153
https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2022.2088142
EDITORIAL
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, defini­
tions 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 internation­
ally (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 40th 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 (TEDSM), 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
© 2022 Association for Teacher Education in Europe
152
EDITORIAL
ideal types, namely teachers as intellectuals, master craftspeople, and artists, in discussing
current landscape of teacher preparation. They acknowledge the complexity of integrat­
ing 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 envi­
sioning 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 char­
acteristics, 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 videolecture combination has contributed to reduce professional anxiety and to increase selfefficacy. 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 class­
room 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 voca­
tional 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
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION
153
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 partner­
ships. Drawing on thirty-five accounts, the authors examine the complexities of teacher
educators’ work and they identify challenges related to guiding and assessing studentteachers; 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 develop­
ing collaborative practices in initial teacher education partnerships.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
References
Craig, C. J. 2016. “Structure of Teacher Education.” In International Handbook of Teacher Education,
edited by J. Loughran and M. L. Hamilton. Singapore: Springer. 69–136 .
Flores, M. A. 2016. “Teacher Education Curriculum.” In International Handbook of Teacher Education,
edited by J. Loughran and M. L. Hamilton. Singapore: Springer. 187–230 .
Ling, L. M. 2017. “Australian Teacher Education: Inside-out, outside-in, Backwards and Forwards?”
European Journal of Teacher Education 40 (5): 561–571. doi:10.1080/02619768.2017.1385599.
Menter, I., and M. A. Flores. 2021. “Connecting Research and Professionalism in Teacher Education.”
European Journal of Teacher Education 44 (1): 115–127. doi:10.1080/02619768.2020.1856811.
Maria Assunção Flores
University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
aflores@ie.uminho.pt