Teacher education programmes within Canada are markedly different in structure and duration across the provinces, which affects programme delivery for teacher candidates and their opportunities for clinical practice. This paper provides a brief overview of Canadian pre-service teacher education, a summary of new teacher induction and mentoring…

Teacher education in the USA is faced with an uncertain future. Unprecedented efforts on the part of government, philanthropic foundations, social entrepreneurs, professional societies and others are reshaping the enterprise. Warring camps have emerged to promote decidedly different visions for teacher education, with university-based teacher…

Educational reform represents a long-term focus of Australian governments. National policy documents have emphasised quality education for all and improved teacher quality for over 30 years. The gaps in achievement among various groups of learners represent a problem for an education system seeking to achieve national quality benchmarks,…

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…

Teacher education in Norway is nationally regulated and is currently undergoing extensive changes. This paper briefly outlines the various education routes for teachers and some of the ongoing work to improve teacher education, but concentrates mainly on the reform that has come the farthest: initial teacher education for grades 1-7 and grades…

The organisation of teacher training was thoroughly transformed in France in 2010. This transformation was the consequence of three interrelated reforms: the requirement of a Master's degree for all teachers, the new recruitment process for teachers and the integration of teacher training colleges (IUFM) into the universities. Universities are now…

Initial teacher education (ITE) has attracted the attention of many researchers worldwide aiming at discussing its curriculum and rationale, but essentially its impact on the education and professional socialisation of pre-service teachers. This paper looks at the major trends in the recent ITE curriculum in the Portuguese context, as a…

The establishment of formal teacher training systems is a relatively new innovation in some parts of Africa. Formal training of secondary teachers in Malawi commenced when the government of Malawi opened the University of Malawi in 1965. The contribution of Malawi's ruling parties to the development of teacher education in Malawi since then is an…

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…

While teacher education is often seen as the key to preparing qualified teachers who are able to educate students for the demands of the twenty-first century, relatively little attention is paid to the teacher educators who actually do this work. Given the increased demand for teacher educators in Australia due to retirements, and the changing…

This article reports on a recent study of teacher educators in England which aimed to explore teacher educators' constructions of their own identities in the academic communities within two university schools of education. Findings show that teacher educators constructed repertoires of identities for themselves, deploying these to achieve…

This paper is designed to offer an Australian perspective on the nature of teacher educators' work based on the observations and experiences of the author, who has been involved in the field for the past two decades. In so doing, the paper is designed not only to offer insights into how teacher education in Australia has been challenged and shaped…

This paper takes a sociocultural approach to questions around the professional identity of teacher educators in Scotland. Through an analysis of the historical trajectory of Scottish teacher education and its institutions, it is suggested that there are four distinctive groups of staff currently working in the university departments that provide…

Drawing on his own experience as an illustrative case, the author examines the interplay of external influences and internal sense-making to explore aspects of teacher educator identity. Framed by attention to institutional, discursive and affinity perspectives on identity development, he argues that research and practice contexts in…

Little is known of the identities and practices of teacher educators in Pakistan. This paper aims to contribute towards redressing that situation. It draws on part of a larger scale study to explore the lives of two teacher educators in one of the largest cities in the country, discussing what influences individuals as they develop their…