Summarizes the activities, contents, and overall outcomes of an international seminar organized jointly by two working groups of SEFI--the Working Group on Women in Engineering and the Working Group on Information and Communication Technologies. Replaces traditional teaching methods and concentration on narrow technical contents with a more…

Introduces a collection of papers that resulted from a 3- year project on scenarios for the future of teacher education in Europe. The first part of the issue introduces scenarios and describes the scenario model developed at a conference. The second part analyzes curriculum developments in different countries, using the scenario model as an…

Asserts that scenarios are powerful tools for creating new perspectives on the future of teacher education, and for stimulating reflection, creativity, and imagination. Scenarios can be helpful both for deciding on institutional or (inter)national policies on teacher education and for facilitating individual learning processes of teacher educators…

Presents four scenarios that illustrate possible futures of teacher education in Europe. The scenarios differ in their emphasis on four driving forces: pragmatism, idealism, individualism, and social coherence. Each scenario is described in terms of characteristics of society, education/teacher education, and teacher/teacher educator roles and is…

Critiques a two-dimensional model for identifying scenarios of future development of education, describing the concepts of "dimension" in mathematics of space and "opposite" in logic. Asserts the model does not deal with dimensions and has no opposites between the end points of the model's two "dimensions" and concludes that the model is useful as…

Examines recent developments in European Union educational policy, highlighting a 2001 document of the Education Council. Evaluates the document's intentions and directions from a pedagogical viewpoint and assesses the document using the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's scenario framework. Shows that future European Union education…

Examines changes in England's teacher education over the past 30 years, identifying key changes and relating them to the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's axes of idealism/pragmatism and individualism/social cohesion. These changes are also seen in the contexts of changes made in school and university education. Extracts from political…

Reviews the development of teacher education in Portugal since the 1974 revolution, which brought the country to democracy. Using the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's scenario model, the paper describes the hidden philosophies underlying changes that are occurring and shows how teacher education has evolved from a romantic, idealistic…

Applies the concepts of idealism, individualism, and pragmatism from the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's scenario model to Germany's teacher education. Discusses the current German teacher training system's scholarly approach to idealism; notes organizational problems; examines the special psychological demands on students made by…

Discusses teacher education in Poland in relation to current ongoing reform of the educational system and looks at issues resulting from the political transformation that has occurred. The article identifies in which of the four quadrants of the scenario model (individualism, pragmatism, idealism, and social cohesion) the current Polish education…

Describes how Sweden's teacher education has developed historically and how development of schools and teacher education links to political, social, and economic development; discussing current teacher education reform in relation to its history and contemporary social/political change; and concluding that patterns of teacher education in one…

Stimulated by severe teacher shortages, teacher education in the Netherlands is changing toward competence-based, work- based-, and market-oriented programs. A Dutch scenario project was developed in which four scenarios for the future of teacher education emerged. These scenarios were structured by the freedom of schools to define the type of…

Reflects on a collection of papers that examined the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's scenario model, suggesting that they indicated a trend toward a more pragmatic and individualistic approach in society that influences teacher education. However, these two trends (pragmatism and idealism) were not always strongly connected in the…

Describes the Association for Teacher Education in Europe's exploration of scenarios to enhance preservice teachers' learning. The action research project had students discuss and devise a scenario for 2020 and develop a curriculum to prepare students for life in the future. Surveys indicated that students approved of this kind of learning and…

Discusses staff development using the scenario as a strategic tool within one teacher education program. The scenario tool provided a way to look at future developments in teacher education and reflect on the learning processes of staff members. This method drew upon the zone of proximal development to create new knowledge about the future. Staff…