As a means of more fully understanding the complexity and effects of teaching and learning within university-based initial teacher education (ITE), this project explored the discursive construction and material conditions of university-based teacher education including teacher educators' work: what is being worked on in university-based ITE? Why? And, with what effects? This study aimed to explore the work of teacher educators in university-based settings. By studying teacher educators' work: how it is produced, maintained, and practiced, it is possible to pay attention to the conditions within which student teachers are learning to teach and from this theorise about current and future directions in ITE. The study explored the work of teacher educators by: (1) analyzing the discursive production of the category of teacher educator in job advertisements, position descriptions, and via interviews with recruitment personnel; (2) interviewing and work-shadowing university-based teacher educators as they practiced their daily work; (3) interviewing student teachers who were involved in teaching and learning activities with participating teacher educators, about their experiences, interpretations and motives; and (4) working with participating teacher educators in a collaborative data analysis workshop to make meaning about ITE. Employment of teacher educators to positions in universities showed the workforce being bifurcated along academic and professional lines. Appointments fell into two main categories -- those who were being employed to teach (including student teacher supervision in practice) and not research, and those sought for research who might also teach, but not in areas of ITE that involved supervision of student teachers on practicum.