In a time of change for teachers, the relationship between teacher professionalization and the power and responsability over professional knowledge production becomes increasingly relevant and complex (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Zeichner & Diniz-Pereira, 2005). Different authors from the Sociology of Professions (Rodrigues, 2002) frame this question but the emphasis in the role of teachers as knowledge producers (Krejsler, 2005; Roldão, 2007) is also parallel with changes in the ways in which knowledge is produced (Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2001). Both Schön’s reflexive practitioner (1992) and Stenhouse’s teacher-researcher (1987) conceptualizations already highlighted the idea of teachers as responsible for the production of their professional knowledge, although a sense of exteriority in regard to this knowledge is usually associated to teachers(Montero, 2001; Nóvoa, 1991).

The agenda for teacher education has included research both as a formative tool and aim at international (OECD, 2005), european (Directorate-General for Education and Culture, European Comission, 2005; Comission of the European Communities, 2007) and national level. In Portugal, the recent changes in the required qualification for being a preschool and basic education teacher have brought research in pre-service teacher education programmes to the foreground. The changes have been read as a strengthening of knowledge production by early childhood and basic education teachers, in the form of final thesis/essays in the new programmes, and as recognition of the scientific status of specific educational knowledge by the higher education institituions (“universitisation”) (Roldão, 2002). This prospect of knowledge production by future teachers, now seen as having knowledge that allows for original developments in a research setting, has lead to discussions about the role of research and research activity in pre-service teacher education in Portugal, has other countries have been doing both in Europe and in the United States. 

A study about “professional knowledge production in teacher education and in the teacher profession in Portugal: the role of research in the identity and knowledge of early childhood teachers” is being developed since 2006. It's aims are to: a) analyze the ways in which the research dimension is being conceived and implemented in the 20 pre-bologna early childhood teacher education programmes in Portugal; b) describe research produced by students in their teacher education programmes: methodological, conceptual and substantive domains; c) identify student teachers’ and early childhood teachers’ qualitatively different ways of experiencing and understanding research; d) examine the ways in which research is conceived as part of early childhood teachers professional identity. This paper focuses on student teachers' and recently qualified teachers' conceptions about research and about research as part of their professional work. 

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