This paper analyzes the relationship between how knowledge is selected and organized in teacher education (TE) and novice teachers’ knowledge relations. The initial questions asked are: (1) How can policy formation processes for TE be connected to teaching practice when it comes to developing teachers’ professional knowledge?(2) How does the profile of TE programs matter when it comes to novice teachers’ knowledge relations?

This paper draws on three comparative and interrelated studies. Afdal (2011) examines policy formation processes for TE in Finland and Norway, through interviews with policy makers. This analysis argues that national contexts can be decisive for policy making. The Finnish model is characterized by a broad, open, and time-consuming academic process. It shows co-dependence between political interests and researchers, resulting in trust and the possibility of mutual influence. Research knowledge is put at the forefront. The Norwegian model displays a tight, short, cyclical process steered by political ideology and the gap between policy formulation bodies and TE. Afdal (submitted for publication) analyzes two different models of TE: one research-based program (RBP) and one general professional program (GPP), and discusses different constructions of the knowledgeable teacher. The GPP emphasizes contextual coherence and the cultural aspects of the profession, while the RBP emphasizes conceptual coherence and the cognitive aspects of the profession. Afdal and Nerland (2011) analyses what kind of knowledge relations Finnish and Norwegian novice teachers express during their first year of teaching. This analysis shows that novice teachers in both contexts have strong relations to experience in professional practice, but also that TE establishes in these teachers particular social and epistemic relations with subsequent professional strategies.

The theoretical framework in this paper takes two initial claims about professions as points of departure: 1) Professions have monopolies over the practice of a defined body of intellectualized knowledge and skills, and 2) Professional activities and frameworks are to a certain extent controlled by the state (Freidson, 2001). The policy process is approached through the Gornitzka (1999) framework on comparative research on policy and policy processes, emphasizing actors involved, interaction and context rules, power relations, and legitimacy. Practice in this study is understood as how knowledge is operationalized and organized in TE programs and how this manifests itself in teachers’ knowledge relations. It is approached through Basil Bernstein’s conceptual framework on structuring, classification, and framing of knowledge, as well as a selection of concepts from his theorization of the pedagogical device (Bernstein, 1999, 2000).

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