This symposium will, within the context of, supposedly, greater Europeanisation, explore the shifting landscapes of professional knowledge formation in England, Norway and Holland of a growing diversity of hybrid teacher-educators (Zeichner 2010).  Following the 2013 European Commission’s publication ‘Supporting Teacher Educators for better learning outcomes’, the symposium will specifically focus upon the ‘Professional Competence’ and ‘Professional Knowledge Base’ of teacher education and teacher educators. 

Internationally, teacher education is a diverse area of Higher Education (HE), within which individuals undertake different types of work and enter HE with different levels of experience and qualification. However, in different ways, all the three papers in this symposium follow the understanding of Goodson (2003) and Hodkinson & Hodkinson (2004) that issues related to all teacher educators’ professional knowledge and identity are intricately related in the formation and development of teachers and the ways in which they chose to deploy their knowledge in professional practice. The term ‘knowledge’ is used to include knowledge itself, as well as the pedagogical and inter-and intra-personal skills, practices and underpinning values for teacher educators’ work.

By focussing on Norway, Holland and England the papers presented and discussed will explore ways in which the knowledge bases of teacher educators can underpin a commitment to the lifelong learning of teacher educators, teachers, teachers in training and the learners of teachers.   The Norwegian paper explores, through questionnaires and interviews, Norwegian university-based teacher educators’ competence viewed from their own and their student teachers’ perspective and aims to develop a deeper understanding of teacher educators’ roles.  Colleagues from the Netherlands present their findings from a paper examining teacher educators’ portfolios within the context of professional standards and, in-so-doing, address what standards do teacher educators focus on, how do they learn and with whom, and what is the contribution to their professional development?  Finally the English paper presents findings from a study exploring, through interview data, how the knowledge bases and identities of teacher educators were perceived by university and school-based teacher educators

This symposium will offer new and contrasting perspectives on the professional knowledge base of teacher educators from three distinctly different Northern European social welfare systems (Esping-Anderson and Myles 2009).  In so doing, it is hoped that these perspectives will, within the context of the European Commission’s recent policy gaze, contribute to the improved understanding of teacher educators’ knowledge and identities and to the growing international literature on this divergent and diverging occupational group.

Esping-Anderson G., and J. Myles. 2009. The Welfare State and Redistribution, unpublished paper. http://www.esping-anderson.com/?a201ce18

European commission. 2013. Supporting Teacher Educators for better learning outcomes.  Brussels: European Commission.

Goodson, I. F. (2003). Professional knowledge, professional lives: Studies in education and change. Open Maidenhead and Philidelphia: University Press.

Hodkinson, H. & Hodkinson, P. (2004). Rethinking the concept of community of practice in relation to schoolteachers. International Journal of Training and Development, 8(1), 21–31.

Zeichner, K. 2010. Re-thinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education 61: 89–99.