Although research reveals that pre-service student teachers often regard their relationships with their significant others as an important element of their initial teaching practice experience, much remains unknown about the influence of significant others on non-native English as a Second Language (ESL) student teachers' professional…

Difficulties in attracting student teachers have resulted in research focusing on student teachers' motives for studying to join the profession. Because previous findings are mixed, the first aim of this study was to explore motives for students to become teachers. A second aim was to explore the relationship between teachers' motives…

Publications by teachers reporting results or case studies of school-based teacher inquiry activities benchmark their professional development by indicating they have a "stance of inquiry". Such papers also disseminate valuable knowledge to the education community for sharing. Essay or case writing has always been a part of school-based…

Since teachers' decisions potentially have consequences for learners' future educational and life opportunities, it is imperative to determine the basis of teachers' decision-making in order to determine whether it is discriminatory. This study combines qualitative and quantitative methods towards a multi-school, multi-region study…

In this paper, I will discuss how to enhance Japanese teacher education. After sketching teacher education from the mid-1940s to the 1960s, I sum up the main topics people discussed through each decade of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Illustrating some of the current topics of teacher education in the first decade of the new century, I discuss what…

This article describes a novel UK school/university partnership, the "Plymouth Model" designed to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to aim for higher education (HE) study. The model incorporates the activity of university students, researchers and teachers working together to improve aspirations and outcomes for…

This article focuses upon the classed and early professional experiences of middle-class novice teachers in England experiencing and contemplating working in schools serving socio-economically disadvantaged communities. Through an examination of the visibility and invisibility of social class in education set within an increasingly unequal and…

Very large numbers of students for whom English is not their native language attend public school classrooms in the USA every year. It is estimated that there are currently about 5.3 million English learners in K-12 grades (National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition 2011). While teacher preparation programmes are required to prepare…

This article reports on a qualitative small-scale case study that investigated what pre-service teachers learned from a former generation of teachers about the context and nature of teaching and teacher education during the 1950s and 1960s. Data comprised semi-structured interviews and a grounded theoretical approach was used to analyse the data.…

This paper provides an overview of how teacher education is currently structured in New Zealand. This overview is set in a historical, cultural, political and professional context with a brief examination of aspects of these influences on the structure. Two very recent policy documents are discussed to exemplify current directions in New Zealand…

This paper considers what has been learned from reviewing the full set of papers in this special issue. It considers some of the major factors that have impacted on education and subsequently teacher education in recent times, namely rapid technological change and increasing globalisation and movement from one country to others, and then focuses…

Research into initial teacher education has come to prominence in recent years, with governments and international organisations advocating reforms in teacher education to serve the needs of a "knowledge economy". In this context, educational research plays a central, albeit controversial, role. On the one hand governmental focus on increasing…

Technology use in schools has great potential to improve student learning outcomes. However, it is imperative that teachers possess a set of technical skills required to implement high-quality technologies in the classroom. Research conducted during the late 1990s and the early 2000s had pointed to the existence of a digital divide that existed in…

This article presents the results of a two-year research study which examined the usefulness of the induction programme for newly recruited teachers in Bedouin schools in the Negev as a unique environment and home for the Bedouin. Bedouin schools are considered a unique environment, where pupils attend schools in recognised and non-recognised…

The purpose of the present study was to identify and investigate critical incidents at school that require ethically sensitive teaching. This kind of knowledge is needed in teacher education to prepare future teachers for their profession. The data included narrative interviews with 12 teachers from four urban schools in Finland. Critical…