This landmark volume presents the work of the American Educational Research Association's Panel on Research and Teacher Education. It represents a systematic effort to apply a common set of scholarly lenses to a range of important topics in teacher education. The Panel's charge was twofold: (1) to create for the larger educational research community a thorough, rigorous, and even-handed analysis of the empirical research evidence relevant to major policies and practices in preservice teacher education in the U.S.; and (2) to propose a research agenda related to teacher education that builds on what is already known and that identifies the research directions that are most promising for the future. Members of the Panel were appointed from various sectors of the educational research community and with different areas of expertise, including teacher education, policy, assessment, research design and methods, liberal arts, multicultural education, and school reform. Building on their diverse perspectives, they ably translated their charge into a series of questions that became the framework for this volume. The questions illuminate many of the issues that have been most contested in past and current discourse about teacher education reform. This book examines research about the current pool of prospective and entering teachers and about local, institutional, state, and federal preservice teacher education policies and practices. Following a foreword and preface, this book presents the following: (1) Executive Summary: The Report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education; (2) The AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education: Context and Goals (M. Cochran-Smith and K. Fries); (3) Researching Teacher Education in Changing Times: Politics and Paradigms (M. Cochran-Smith and K. Fries); (4) Teachers Characteristics: Research on the Demographic Profile (K. Zumwalt and E. Craig); (5) Teachers' Characteristics: Research on the Indicators of Quality (K. Zumwalt and E. Craig); (6) Research on the Effects of Coursework in the Arts and Sciences and in the Foundations of Education (R. Floden and M. Meniketti); (7) Research on Methods Courses and Field Experiences (R. T. Clift and P. Brady); (8) Research on Pedagogical Approaches in Teacher Education (P. Grossman); (9) Research on Preparing Teachers' for Diverse Populations (E. Hollins and M. T. Guzman); (10) Research on Preparing General Education Teachers to Work with Students with Disabilities (M. C. Pugach); (11) Research on Accountability Processes in Teacher Education (S. Wilson and P. Youngs); (12) Teacher Education Programs (K. M. Zeichner and H. G. Conklin); and (13) A Research Agenda for Teacher Education (K. M. Zeichner). The book concludes with: AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education--Biographies of the Panel Members.