Current developments in mathematics education require teachers to play a different and more profound role than few years ago. The first half of this article discusses the theoretical background of these developments in terms of their epistemological and meta-mathematical orientations. Based on this theoretical analysis, the teacher's new role is summed up as one of "forced autonomy". Next, the article summarises two different responses on the part of the research community to the situation of forced autonomy. These are the ones of focussing primarily on teachers' meta-mathematical and mathematical qualifications. Subsequently, the results of an empirical study are outlined. These results are used both to develop an empirically grounded elaboration of the notion of forced autonomy and to challenge the above-mentioned responses on the part of the research community. The concluding section calls for the adoption of broad perspectives on teacher qualifications, integrating pedagogical, mathematical and meta-mathematical perspectives.