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…

This study describes higher education-based teacher educators' professional trajectories, i.e. their professional activities and learning as developed throughout their career. Semi-structured interviews were held with 41 teacher educators from Ireland, Israel, Norway and the Netherlands. Findings show that teacher educators were recruited mainly…

This paper focuses on the Janus face-teacher educator and researcher. Drawing on existing international literature, our aim is to position ourselves in the discussion relating to our own and other research. In this paper we limit ourselves to discuss two main components, namely teaching and research in relation to which teacher educators seem to…

Current literature suggests that while teacher educators perform a multitude of complex roles, they receive minimal preparation or possibilities for professional development to fulfil these roles. As a result, they need to acquire relevant knowledge and skills after taking on the position of teacher educators. Therefore, it is important to learn…

While policy debate is often focused on the whole teaching profession, primary and secondary teachers differ in more ways than one. While all countries require teachers to have at least a bachelor degree to enter the profession in primary or lower secondary education, the structure and content of the programmes vary and are less geared towards…

To better understand the status of the teaching profession, we present a conceptual framework outlining the 4 domains of knowledge-worker professionals: professional benchmarks, professional discretion, room for promotion, and workplace conditions and use the TALIS 2013 survey data to show that these domains exist globally and vary within…

Few men around the world work in daycare settings, nursery schools or kindergartens. Yet wherever they are found, men who are perceived to have crossed the gender boundary in their choice of profession are widely acclaimed as gifted educators and excellent caregivers. Policy makers who care about providing quality education for young children need…