My contribution will focus on the research base for teachers’ professional knowledge. Teachers need a visible field of knowledge to which further education as well as research can be connected. In the United States there is an on-going debate regarding the function of and possibilities for educational research to provide relevant knowledge for teachers or if what has been labelled teacher research (e.g. Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 1999) as a way of building a knowledge base from teachers’ craft knowledge and/or existing teaching practices is necessary. I think we still need such a discussion in Europe. This is becoming more urgent since the pressures for more and deeper (disciplinary based) subject knowledge together with an academization of teacher education programs are growing. Based on a discussion of the teaching profession’s professional object I will argue for the need of a more classroom-based subject didactic research as a necessary and central part of building a professional knowledge base for teachers. I will also argue that the pressure for evidence-based teaching is a threat to the whole project of teacher professionalization unless it can be connected to the development of a subject didactic knowledge base.

References Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1990). Research on teaching and teacher research: The issues that divide. Educational Researcher, 19 (2), 2-11. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1999). The teacher research movement: a decade later. Educational Researcher, 28 (7), 15-25.