This presentation is concerned with the question of whether primary school teacher education in Germany, which is organized by each state, is an education for specialists or generalists. Since German teachers at elementary level normally teach the majority of subjects in one class, teachers often face the challenge of teaching subjects out-of-field as they usually have not been trained for every subject. Findings from research on the effects of teaching out-of-field suggest that it may be favorable that initial teacher education covers all subjects that are to be taught by primary teachers. Research shows, in particular that non-qualified teachers are less effective in teaching resulting in lower students’ proficiency levels (e.g., Richter, Kuhl, Reimers, & Pant, 2012) and they also feel less confident in teaching these subjects (e.g., du Plessis et al., 2014; Porsch & Wendt, 2015). Official documents on teacher education such as training regulations issued by the 16 German states were analyzed specifically focusing on the number of obligatory subjects that have to be chosen in order to qualify as a primary school teacher. Craig (2016) differentiates in her international review of teacher education systems between two models: generalists or specialists in order to classify the systems worldwide. Accordingly, based on the information obtained from the documents, the teacher system for each German state was categorized as an education for specialists (educated in two subjects) or generalists (educated in three or more subjects). Education is defined as a training of subjects in the first and second phase. If none of these categories apply, the system was identified as a hybrid model. The results of the analysis show that in two states’ primary school teachers are educated as specialists. In four states teachers are educated as generalists trained in more than three subjects. Another three teacher training systems can be described as a generalist education although only three subjects are required. The systems of the remaining number of states can be described as hybrid models. The results indicate that the teacher education in combination with the class teacher principle at primary schools can be identified as one potential reason for the situation of out-of-field teaching at elementary level in some German states. These findings can be compared to teacher education models worldwide in terms of how they fit the teachers’ working demands along with the question of how teachers react to the situation of teaching out-of-field (Hobbs, 2012).

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