Teacher education is traditionally regarded as a national issue. National compulsory school and teacher education and training are usually interlinked. The purpose of schooling is to provide a nation with a qualified workforce, but also to bring to new generations the cultural heritage, language and to strengthen national identity. Increasing global competition intensifies the tension between the dual aims of education. This makes teacher education and teacher education reforms ideologically and politically more important than before. Even though the new educational reforms and rhetoric of the last decade have a national mission and agenda, the reforms are embedded in an increasing globalization process. Globalization can be regarded as a new era; a continuation of the latter part of industrialism and the post-modern society. Among researchers there seems to be considerable agreement that the core of globalization lies in the new market economy with its worldwide activity. It is also a consequence of modern science and new technology. Globalization as a worldwide phenomenon economically, politically, culturally and socially concerns the nations, the institutions and thus indirectly everybody. Teacher education is incorporated as well. In the Nordic societies the growth of professions has historically been closed linked to the development of the welfare-state. Higher education seems more and more to be perceived as a guarantee for professionalism, quality and high standard. Even though higher education is emphasized as important for qualification for different professions, not much has been known about the real connection between education, later professional practice and the possible impact of the globalization process. This paper will present an ongoing longitudinal empirical study from Norway, called StudData, including about 40 professions. StudData started in the year 2000 and will continue till the year 2009. The study focuses on the recruitment for higher education leading to professional qualification, students' motivation, students' values and their views on the professional education and their future occupation. The research design will be presented and discussed and some data will be presented and analyzed. Data presented will cover teacher students, their background, values and their views on teacher education and the relevance of education for their later work as teachers in schools. The empirical data will provide a basis for further analyses and explanations of teacher students and their qualification to the teacher profession in a global governance perspective.