Teacher Education

This chapter updates a previous review of qualitative research in teacher education and focuses on three areas: (1) a comparison between how one journal in North America and one with a European/UK focus each constructed teachers, teaching, and teacher education; (2) case studies of teachers and programmes; and (3) action research in teacher education. In 2009, stark differences were noted between how teaching was constructed in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, but by 2018, those differences had shrunk, with articles in North America focusing more on instruction than policy, and journals in Europe and the UK concentrating more on teachers’ working conditions. An updated review of case studies of teacher education found that the definition of a ‘case’ remains largely undefined, that the cases remain locally focused and do not address broader systemic concerns, and that case research has not begun to address the impact of technology or other innovations in teacher education. Similarly, an update of the literature on action research found continuing unrealized promise in its practices. The chapter concludes with a call for more detailed, systematic, and extended ethnographic studies of teaching education that are tied to broader issues in policy and educational practice.