Increasing global pressure to enhance teacher quality has led to increasing numbers of new ITE programmes, yet there is a dearth of policy studies interrogating exactly how both macro and micro-policy processes combine to shape the development of these programmes. This article examines one particular new programme--the MSc Transformative Learning and Teaching (MSc TLT)--and rather than presenting one coherent narrative of programme development, identifies three distinct cultural spaces in which ITE exists: the political space, the professional space and the university space. An analysis is provided of the way(s) in which the development of the MSc TLT has been supported or resisted in each of these cultural spaces. The analysis challenges the dualist notion of 'official' v. 'counter' narratives, instead revealing a series of compliant or disruptive narratives across the various spaces, contributing a new way of understanding the development of new ITE programmes.