This symposium will focus on a key issue in raising European educational standards: the professional development of teachers. During the last 12-15 years teacher development has become an established field of study whose research has made valuable contributions to understanding how teachers develop and how their development may be effected and facilitated. Research in the field is international in scale and has yielded a plethora of theoretical perspectives and models that purport to represent and/or conceptualise the teacher (or the professional) development process (e.g. Eraut, 2004; Hoekstra et al, 2007; Simons and Ruijters, 2004). Yet there remains much that we do not know, and those who research this field continue to examine new ways in which teachers are found to have developed, and to contribute new perspectives that help us to understand what professional development is and how it occurs. This symposium brings together researchers from the UK, Belgium and Switzerland, who, together, offer three such perspectives. The common thread tying the presentations together is the use of ‘real life’ cases to illustrate the presenters’ theoretical perspectives: the linking of theory with practice, in order to expose and clarify the complexity of professional development. Yet the findings presented address a key question that is relevant across Europe: by what processes do teachers develop? The symposium begins with Linda Evans’s explanation of her theoretical models of professional development through cases of UK teachers whose own words (gathered through research interviews) allow them to communicate the decision-making, thought processes, and attitudes that combined to shape the processes whereby they developed. Next, Giorgio Ostinelli reports his work in Swiss schools, inspired by the methodology, ‘understanding by design’. He explains how a ‘circle of understanding’ that underpins teacher development emerged out of what began as an innovative teaching approach, and he goes on to examine this within the framework of Evans’s theoretical models. The third presenters, Belgian researchers Geert Kelchtermans and Katrijn Ballet, present their perspectives of the key components of successful in-service professional development, which arose out of their analyses of the ‘real life’ case of in-service teacher development provision at their own university. Finally, acting as discussant, Sara Bubb, from the London Institute of Education, who has lectured and researched extensively on teacher development, will highlight the symposium’s coherence by drawing together the principal messages conveyed in the presentations, and identifying key issues for discussion.

The symposium presentations will each draw upon qualitative data generated through semi-structured interviews.

The symposium sheds light on the processes whereby teachers develop and enhances understanding of what professional development is, and how it is constituted. It will highlight the commonalities across three northern European national contexts and pose questions about how applicable the findings are in other European contexts: namely, southern and eastern Euroepan countries.