This article analyses the impact of a constructivist approach to learning in Jordan, where a traditional context of passive/receptive philosophy of teaching prevails. Student teachers were introduced to journal writing. It was expected that their experiences with journal writing would afford them a better understanding of how it would affect their…

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what "teaching" means in 21st century learning environments. These…

The dynamic forces shaping education in the 21st century have led countries across the world to pursue sweeping educational reforms. Despite significant investment and radical approaches including system and organisational restructuring, managerialism and marketisation, evidence of sustained impact in the classroom remains elusive. Using the…

This article provides an ethnographic account of the tensions arising from the different ways of building authority as teachers and the role of higher education in establishing teachers' legitimacy in Russia through the specific example of religious education. After state atheism was abandoned in 1991, an unprecedented demand for religious…

The close connection between the quality of provision for young children and professionalisation of the field has long been supported by international research. That the two are inseparable aspects of one picture is beginning to become accepted at European policy level, as evident in recent high level EU policy documents. This article explores the…

Since 1980, the recruitment of teachers in many countries has followed a systematic certification procedure, i.e. a selection procedure according to criteria set by the State which are considered the minimum qualification for entrance into the profession. The term used in the last few years to define the desired level of qualification of teachers…

In this article, we: (1) offer a conceptualisation of what it means for Greek Cypriot teachers to be "reconciled" with the "other side" (i.e. Turkish Cypriots) in Cyprus; (2) examine Greek Cypriot teachers' emotional responses to the new educational objective of cultivating peaceful coexistence in schools; and (3) investigate how Greek Cypriot…

A growing number of governments, seeking to modernise their country's education system, adapt cooperative learning (CL) as a major component of their educational policy. Since the 1960s, when CL re-emerged to become a systematic pedagogy, CL practice has been constantly refined on the basis of ongoing research. Research results have consistently…

Since 2000, the European Union has given greater attention to lifelong learning, as expressed in the Lisbon presidency conclusions and the general objectives of the Education and Training 2010 work programme. In September 2007, these policy proposals were further strengthened with the announcement of the "Action Plan on Adult Learning" that sets…

In this overview of non-vocational adult education and the training of its professionals we seek to provide a map of existing provision through secondary analysis of existing data. The territory is a complex one with a range of providers and considerable blurring of the vocational and non-vocational divide. Further, because of devolution within…

The article summarizes the findings of a study on adult learning professions in Europe (ALPINE) commissioned by DG Education and Culture. It explores the current professional and social situation of staff in non-vocational adult education in Germany. It describes the structures and organisations of general adult education in Germany and…

The discussion in this article is based on recent research carried out by the author recently on adult education public policies and her participation in the Adult Learning Practitioners in Europe (ALPINE) project coordinated by Research voor Beleid (The Netherlands) and funded by the European Commission. The analysis presented here stresses the…

This article presents a brief analysis of teacher education in five European countries: Italy, Germany, England, Sweden and Finland. In the post-industrial world, the sense of teaching has profoundly changed, influenced by a rapidly evolving socio-economic context. The responses given by each country are different, but two tendencies emerge: on…

Adult education and lifelong learning together form one of the priorities for development in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The important historical and social context in which the professional development of adult educators has been taking place in the Baltic States since they regained their independence in the 1990s is the changes that occurred…

Following a narrative and biographic approach, in this study, we present the case of an in-service language teacher and her professional learning trajectory in the context of the project "Languages and education: constructing and sharing training". This project aimed at the construction of a collaborative teacher education context for…