The Department for Education (DfE) in England seeks to determine the actions of educationists in both the public and private sectors through the use of targeted instructive documents and white papers where broader policy intention is presented. Since 2010, as we will show, there has been a shift in the nature of such papers towards justification…

The three main themes of this Special Issue of "European Journal of Teacher Education" are brought together and considered in the light of what has been said in the articles included. These themes of teacher education, professionalism and research are all dynamic in the way they have been developing over time and also demonstrate…

This paper is based on a keynote address given at the ATEE Annual Conference 2019, held at Bath Spa University, remembering Geoff Whitty (1946-2018). It seeks to make sense of the current teacher education scene, both within the United Kingdom and across Europe and beyond. Reference will be made to Whitty's enormous contribution to our…

This article examines the potential of sociocultural approaches for making sense of the way in which globalization shapes teacher education policy and practice in particular contexts. It argues that the value of such approaches lies in their reframing of many conventional dualities that tend to characterize analyses of the process of…

This chapter explores some of the key underlying forces impacting on teacher education internationally. The effect of globalization on curriculum and assessment processes with increased prescription and accountability, in particular on core skills such as literacy and numeracy, is evident. The construct of teacher education is identified as a…

The commitment to establish a "school-led" system of teacher education in England, announced by the Coalition Government in 2011 and relentlessly pursued thereafter, represented a radical departure from previous kinds of initial teacher education partnership. While it is entirely consistent with a neoliberal agenda, with its strong…

The relationships between politics and teacher education have become increasingly close over recent decades in many contexts around the world, often causing significant challenges as well as some opportunities. In this article, we draw on a project on the reform of teacher education in Russia and through a comparison with the development of…

We trace the recent development of the Oxford Education Deanery as an expansion of an initial teacher education partnership to include wider school-university collaboration in professional development, and in research. The current policy pressures in England are described on both school-university partnerships for initial teacher education, and on…

In his inaugural Presidential Address, given to the BERA Conference 2013 at the University of Sussex, Ian Menter addresses a number of issues concerning educational policy and the contributions that educational research might make to policy development. As BERA approaches its fortieth anniversary, he also sets out some of the responsibilities that…

Educational research in Scotland has a very distinguished history and has made a major contribution in several aspects of methodology, not least in the relationships between researchers, policymakers and practitioners. The paper considers the Scottish contribution to the development of educational research past, present and future and the…

Drawing on the experience of carrying out a literature review commissioned to support the Review of Teacher Education in Scotland, this paper discusses the role of literature reviews within the movement for "evidence-based policy" making. The first part of the paper discusses the purposes of such reviews and some of the misconceptions…

This paper reports on a mixed methods study carried out within the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme at the University of Oxford on the ways that the course sought to frame and address the link between poverty and poorer educational outcomes. The study was concerned with the views held by ITE students on the effects of poverty on pupils'…

This paper reports on the introduction of a "clinical model" of teacher education at the University of Glasgow in 2011. The account is set against the backdrop of a review of major contemporary developments in teacher education. The common focus in this work is on such themes as the key function of the practicum, on "teaching…

This article provides an overview of the background and recent developments leading to the current reshaping of teacher education in Scotland, starting with the developments emanating in the past decade from the McCrone Report and finishing with the recent Donaldson Report, "Teaching Scotland's Future." It documents the key features of…

Background: Teacher education in Scotland has developed its own trajectory for many years and this distinctiveness appears to have increased since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Teachers' pay and conditions were addressed in 2001 by the agreement "A teaching profession for the 21st century." This agreement led to a…