This paper takes a sociocultural approach to questions around the professional identity of teacher educators in Scotland. Through an analysis of the historical trajectory of Scottish teacher education and its institutions, it is suggested that there are four distinctive groups of staff currently working in the university departments that provide…

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…

The Refugees Into Teaching in Scotland (RITeS) project has been funded by the Scottish government since 2006 to offer support and guidance to refugee teachers in Scotland. A research study aligned with the RITeS project took place from 2007-2008, funded by the West of Scotland Wider Access Forum. The research was managed by a multi-partner group…

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…

When "New Labour" came to power in the United Kingdom in 1997, one of their first major initiatives was to establish new devolved political institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Drawing upon developments in education in Scotland and England, this article explores some aspects of "regulation",…

This paper draws from a systematic literature review carried out for the General Teaching Council for Scotland on "Widening access into the teaching profession." The paper first sets out a rationale for seeking the creation of a teaching profession that is demographically representative of the wider population. It is suggested that eight…

This paper considers two examples of recent policies affecting teachers' work, Performance Threshold Assessment in England and Chartered Teacher status in Scotland. Through tracing their origins and motivations, a comparative analysis is offered, which seeks to explore the extent of the influence of national contexts on developments in the…

The paper reports on aspects of an ESRC project, "The impact of Performance 'Threshold Assessment' on teachers' work" (ESRC R000239286). The paper begins by explaining the nature and technology of "Threshold Assessment," and its location nationally within the performance management system recently introduced into schools in England. We review the…

This article draws on data from the authors' recent research project "The Impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on Teachers' Work", funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC R000239286) for two years from May 2001. Within its wider context of performance management the authors focused on "Threshold Assessment", employing a…

Following the 1998 Green Paper on teachers' work, the UK government introduced Threshold Assessment of teachers in England and Wales in 2000. Teachers who met the Threshold standards were rewarded with a pay rise and access to an upper pay spine. At the time ministers gave assurances that equal opportunities would be taken very seriously in the…