Constant global social and economic changes cause education systems to
change, including also teacher training.  Education reforms cannot be
consideredwithout modifications for teacher training systems.  In other
words, the adjustments in education systems are also reflected in the
Teacher Education Reforms across countries.Therefore, this study aims to
explore teacher education policies in twodifferent countries, Sweden and
Turkey, via the analysis of the educationreforms. Teacher training has
been modified throughout the years in the twocountries in relation to
the gap between theory and practice, which has formeda discourse around
which the reforms have developed. While Sweden was undergoing reform acts
in 1985, 2001 and 2010, Turkey went through a similar process in 1997 and
2006. The reforms are analyzed in relation to the reasons, structural and
substantive changes and expected outcomes. What were the causes for a
reform? What was changed? What was offered instead? What outcomes
were expected? These are the questions that form the core for the
analysis in the paper. These issues are interrelated with theory and
practice relations, teacher quality, and quality assurances.

We have used critical discourse analysis (Chouliaraki & Farclough,
1999;Fairclough, 1992, 1995, 2003, 2006) both theoretically and
methodologically. In terms of theoretical assumptions, intertextuality
and interdiscursivity are used as analytical screens towards which the
discourse about the relation between theory and practice in the process
of policy text production is analysed. The concept of discourse is used in
the way Fairclough (1992) defines it, as a form of language use and as a
kind of social practice, which means that discourse contains the
whole process of social interaction. For instance, the policy texts that
are analysed represent a part of this process only, though the process
also includes the conditions for policy text production and the process
of interpretation.

The paper compares and contrasts teacher education policies in terms of
theory and practice relations within recent decades in two countries.
However, the similarities and differences are also evaluated within a
larger context, that of teacher education policies in the EU.

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