It is only recently that teacher educators are recognised as a professional group within education (European Commission, 2013). One of the reasons for this may be the absence of a specific professional and academic knowledge base for and about teacher educators. For certain professions, such as medicine and architecture, the development of technical academic knowledge increased to the professionalization of the profession (Abbott, 1988). However, the need for technically advanced knowledge is less felt by professions like law and education. The members of these professions are not so much interested in being able to offer high-quality technology, but to share useful, work-related and advanced knowledge (Hargreaves, 2000). Therefore, the knowledge base for teacher and teacher educators cannot always be classified neatly in terms of professional, semi-professional or academic knowledge. I use the general term ‘knowledge‘ to indicate publications that were written for, about and by teacher educators in the Netherlands. Based on an historical study into the profession and identity of teacher education (Swennen, 2012), I describe the development of a knowledge base for, about and by teacher educators and the implications of this development for the identity of teacher educators. After 1950 the first documents for teacher educators that aimed at the enhancement of the work of their work as teacher educators were published by researchers and experts at national professional development institutes. It took until the last decades of the 20th century before the first articles about teacher educators as a specific professional group emerged. Over the last two decades teacher educators themselves are involved in academic and practice based research and now contribute to the knowledge base of their profession. By doing this, they extended and are still extending their traditional identities with that of researcher.

Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. European Commission (2013). Supporting teacher educators for better learning outcomes. Retrieved 10 January on http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/doc/support-teacher-educators_en.pdf. Hargreaves, D. (2000). Teaching as a research-based profession: Possibilities and prospects. In B. Moon, J. Butcher & E. Bird (Eds.), Leading professional development in education (pp. 200-210). London/New York: Routledge/Falmer. Swennen, A. (2012), Van oppermeesters tot docenten hoger onderwijs: De ontwikkeling van het beroep en de identiteit van lerarenopleiders [The development of the profession and identity of teacher educators], Amsterdam: VU University Amsterdam. Available on http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/38045.