This study is a contribution to the study of the relationship between the knowledge base of a professional education and professional identity (Afdal, 2012a, 2012b; Brante, 2010, 2011).

The aim is to explore the relationship between the knowledge base of Danish teacher education and the social prestige of the profession as a historical dynamic of change and reproduction.

The theoretical framing is the sociological of knowledge (Bernstein, 1996; Maton, 2014; Young & Muller, 2013), and the theory of institutions as systems of thought (Archer, 1996, 2013; Douglas, 1987; Vaughan & Archer, 1971).

Background and problem

The Danish teacher education was developed around the institution of the “seminarium”, which was develop in the early modern German philanthropic tradition and in Denmark was influenced by the church as well as the so-called folk high school in the 18^th century.

Whereas teacher education in the other Nordic countries during the latter part of the 20^th century have become university departments, the Danish teacher education has remained within the seminarum-tradition, even if organizationally developed as part of the university college institution, which constitutes a parallel system of higher education, which focusses on so-called professional education.

Concepts such as “development-based” teacher education, and “practice-oriented research” has been developed, as part of a strategy aimed at constituting a more hands on, relevant knowledge culture in educational research, than the one associated with the university.

Compared to the rest of the Scandinavian countries, Denmark alone has developed this type of strategy. This difference has been explained as the outcome of “differing national knowledge cultures”, which has their “repercussions in present-day policies and politics of teacher education” (Larsen, 2016; Thue et al., 2021, p. 11).

In this paper, I will present an outline to a study of the knowledge culture of the Danish teacher education, with a focus on change and reproduction in, what is called the knowledge base of the teacher profession (Bjerre & Dorf, 2019). The study focusses on two processes of social change from the perspective of teacher education:

• The process of nation building in the nineteenth and twenty centuries; where the public school system and the corresponding teacher education performed a central role in the nation-building process, first as an appendix to the Church, later as the central institutions in the development of democratic society.
• The Europeanization and globalization discourse in the twenty first century, where the school is seen as the central institution for the reproduction of European values and the development of an inclusive society; and the teacher education has been reformed based as a means of realizing this challenge.

Studying these processes may help understand how the knowledge foundation of an institution is created, reproduced and changed, within a cultural and social space, where the functional necessity of the institution is leveled against the interests of other institutions, such as in the first case the church and the state and in the second case the European union and global institutions, such as UNESCO and OECD.

The methodological frame is based on a combination of structuralism and sociology of knowledge. Focus of the analysis is: - which types of knowledge was passed on in the early seminaries, and which types of knowledge are used in contemporary teacher education; what are the structural homologies? How may the change be described? - how was the knowledge framed, what were the criteria of selection, the purpose of knowledge, and how did it relate to the identity of the learner, and how does this compare to contemporary teacher education? Comparative aspect The curriculum of the Danish teacher education – aimed at the primary school - will be compared to the curriculum of the education of teacher for the upper secondary school, which is university based. Data construction The data will be documents, which account for the foundation of the teacher education as well as texts books, evaluations, and descriptions of the seminars. Historical accounts of the relationship between the church and the teacher education. Documents which account for the debates on the development of the teacher education during the 19th century. Questions: - what were the rationales in the debates concerning the teacher education, which arguments were used and what was seen as the purpose of the profession? How was it framed? Where was it placed, with what legitimation? Contemporary study Data construction: Interviews with students, teachers, and leaders at the teacher college and evaluations, government documents and policy of teacher education. Questions: - what are the rationales in the debates concerning the teacher education, which arguments are used and what is seen as the purpose of the profession? How is it framed? Where is it placed, with what legitimation? Focus of analysis are the following structures: • Location: Urban/rural • Type of knowledge: Local/universal • Relation to power: Autonom – heteronom • Authority: science – religion

Preliminary findings are the following structural configuration in the teacher education in Denmark: • Religion – rural – bound to context – heteronom knowledge – object of administration and governance • Opposing pole: • Science – urban – context-free – autonom knowledge – locus of administration and governance

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