Stenhouse (1975) famously linked teacher development and curriculum development, stating that we cannot meaningfully have the latter without attending to the former. This position encapsulated, and envisioned to reinforce, a long professional tradition of teacher professional autonomy over curriculum matters in the UK, at a period however during which the school curriculum, teacher education and the teaching profession were coming under increasing and multiple pressures of external regulation and control. From a different perspective and context, but along similar rationalities as to teacher professionalism and curriculum, Clandinin and Connelly (1992) argued a case for teachers as curriculum-makers, by acknowledging the personal in their practical knowledge and, by extension, shifting the disciplinary boundaries of teacher education beyond academic knowledge in established disciplines.  This double symposium will bring together perspectives on teacher education with scholarship around curriculum theory and the practices of curriculum making, including recent theoretical insights, which have sought to reframe curriculum making as non-linear social practice that occurs within different sites of activity across education systems (Priestley, et al., 2021). The symposium is international in scope, combining perspectives from North America and different countries in Europe, a diversity which will be significant in shedding light on how different types of states respond to emerging international and local pressures to prepare teachers as particular types of professionals, with different types of teacher education curricula, which, in turn, enable or constrain different curriculum making practices in communities, schools and classrooms. In the first part of the symposium, we focus on supra and macro phenomena that shape both teacher education and curricular practices. Here, we focus on policy, exploring transnational and system level discourses, in relation to current trends such as of performativity, accountability and labour market issues.

Following an extended introduction to the symposium, the first part comprises two papers. In the first, Daniel Alvunger explores the current terrain of teacher education in Sweden, drawing upon curriculum theory – Bernstein’s pedagogic device – to analyse how various global and international discourses driving policy are recontextualised within teacher education institutions. The second paper, by Todd Price, draws upon a curriculum perspective to explore tensions in the USA between instrumental and critical discourses of teacher education, and their potential impacts upon teacher education policy and practices.

In the second part of the symposium, there are three papers, all focusing on the relationships between teacher education and curriculum making by teachers. In the first paper, Nienke Nieveen presents analysis of research in the Netherlands into the relationships between new teacher career pathways, supported by professional development opportunities, and teachers’ capacity as curriculum makers. The second paper, presented by Mark Priestley and Valerie Drew, concerns the development of partnerships between a university and two regional development agencies (in Scotland and Wales) to build curriculum making capacity amongst middle and senior leaders in schools. The final presentation by Stavroula Philippou and Stavroula Kontovourki draws upon empirical research into four distinct phases of teacher education policy in Cyprus, illustrating the relationship between teacher education and teacher professionalism, including the capacity for curriculum making.

The discussant for both sessions will be Professor Bob Davies; he will provide both a response to each session, and a synthesis of the two sessions.

Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1992). Teacher as curriculum maker. In P. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of curriculum (pp. 363–461). New York: Macmillan. Priestley, M., Philippou, S., Alvunger, D. & Soini, T. (2021). Curriculum Making: A conceptual framing. In: M. Priestley, D. Alvunger, S. Philippou. & T. Soini, Curriculum making in Europe: policy and practice within and across diverse contexts (pp. 1-27). Bingley: Emerald. Stenhouse, L. (1975). An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann.