Teacher education in the Nordic countries has undergone a slow process of academization since the 1960ties and 1970ties. This includes an institutional transition as well as a transition in the ways educational knowledge is approached in these settings. The central question being: can changes in educational knowledge be observed in this transition? And if so: what is the character of these changes?

The tradition of “seminarium” teacher education, i.e. local teacher training colleges, was based on an idea of training teachers of non-academic backgrounds entering institutions that embraced the “man from the plough”; since the late 19^th century this was to secure that teachers be in tune with the outlook of ordinary people and ideas of peoples enlightenment. This tradition was challenged with a new demand for a gymnasium degree as an entrance requirement into Nordic teacher training at least from the 1960ties and 1970ties. The gymnasium represented the academic strand of the educational system and the change was perceived as an academization. Institutional change has pushed this transition in all the Nordic countries. In Finland teacher education was placed at universities already in the 1970ties. Sweden followed suit in 1988 placing TE at universities and highschools. In the Icelandic and Norwegian case this development has led to the establishment of teacher education programs situated at both universities and university colleges since the 1990ties. In Denmark a process of mergers between local teacher training colleges, have created larger regional university college institutions but not a total integration with the existing university system. The Bologna process and national policies have further enhanced this transition and pressed towards longer duration of the programs. This process has the overall appearance of an academization and a change of site of Nordic teacher education.

The questions that arise from this institutional transition are many. Can a clash between the seminary culture (with its own strong normativity) and the academic culture be observed? It seems as if instead of a traditional European celebration of “Wissenschaft” at its home site, i.e. the university, the policy trend is to adopt a highly instrumental view of knowledge. This policy trend is promoted by the Bologna Process and the National Qualification Frameworks. Thus three different cultures of learning and approaches to educational knowledge clash in this move of site: The seminary culture, the academic culture and the policy culture.

What does the move to a university setting entail for educational knowledge in Nordic pre-service teacher education? The policies pushing this transition have called for more research based educational knowledge. Under the headings of “what works” and “evidence based practice” a new agenda of approaching educational knowledge from a both more performative but also scientific angle has been promoted. This challenge has worked together with the tendency towards output assessment and international school testing promoted by the OECD. Existing educational knowledge traditions are challenged in this process. The questions that arise from this scenario are also numerous: are we witnessing a naturalization of educational knowledge that tries to overcome the more normative approaches? Is the tradition of didactics being overtaken by a curriculum approach? Is this a part of a change in the professional status of the teacher?

An approach of contemporary history of education will be chosen with the concept of culture taken from the work of Karin Knorr Cetina as guiding framework. The concepts of epistemic cultures and of national or global knowledge cultures will be a point of departure (Cetina 2007). The analytical method will include document analysis framed by the overall relation between institutional cultures and educational knowledge.

Knorr Cetina, K. (2007). Culture in global knowledge societies: knowledge cultures and epistemic cultures. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4), 361-375. Ziman, J. (2000). Real Science: What it is, and what i means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schriewer, Jürgen (2009). "A comparative history of educational studies: Will it ever be possible" in Pedagogik som examensemne 100 år, Uppsala: Universitetstryckeriet.