This book introduces how large-scale teacher reforms are implemented and impacting teachers around the world. Previous books on teacher policy or reforms have tended to focus on the background, development, and descriptions of teacher reforms.

This Open Access volume by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) is an outcome of the ICMI Study 24 and gives a status-quo of school mathematics reform around the world and what we can learn from this movement. Each theme and section of the book offers descriptions and analyses of multiple case studies in different countries and contexts, along with opportunities to compare, contrast and learn from these diverse experiences. The volume provides a synthesis and meta-analysis of the different historical, geographical and global aspects of school mathematics reforms and explores in which way curricula are elaborated, proposed, changed, and reorganized. It offers a more informed and comprehensive analysis of the roles of different actors and of the many aspects influencing and shaping mathematics curriculum reforms that are taking or have taken place. It also explores the possibilities and means to tackle a curricular reform in the current scenario we live in and how to unfold future developments. This book will be of interest to practitioners and scholars with an interest in school mathematics curriculum reforms. It will also be a useful resource to those involved in school mathematics curriculum reform initiatives by providing current information about the curriculum changes that are taking place in respect of content, teacher education, educational materials, and a range of implementation challenges across diverse contexts.

An ethnography of Russian teacher education reforms as scripted performances of political theater. Around the world, countries undertake teacher education reforms in response to international norms and assessments. Russia has been no exception. Elena Aydarova develops a unique theatrical framework to tell the story of a small group of reformers who enacted a major reform to modernize teacher education in Russia. Based on scripts circulated in global policy networks and ideologies of national development, this reform was implemented despite great opposition—but how? Drawing on extensive ethnographic material, Aydarova teases out the contradictions in this process. Teacher Education Reform as Political Theater reveals how the official story of improving education obscured dramatic and, ultimately, socially conservative changes in the purposes of schooling, the nature and perception of teachers’ work, and the design of teacher education. Despite the official rhetoric, Aydarova argues, modernization reforms such as we see in the Russian context normalize social inequality and put educational systems at the service of global corporations. As similar dramas unfold around the world, this book considers how members of scholarly communities and the broader public can respond to reformers’ stories of crises and urgent calls for reform on other national stages. “This book provides an unprecedented ethnographic look into the making of national education policy. The setting, amazingly, is Russia, but the volume raises questions about how ideas become policy in other nations as well. It is thus a highly provocative and fascinating case study that should get the attention of anyone interested in national and global education policymaking.” — Kathryn Anderson-Levitt, coeditor of Comparing Ethnographies: Local Studies of Education Across the Americas

The International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy is a comprehensive resource that examines how teacher quality is conceptualized, negotiated, and contested, and teacher policies are developed and implemented by global, national, and local policy actors. Edited by two of the leading comparative authorities in the field, it draws on the research and contributions of scholars from across the globe to explore five central questions: How has teacher quality been conceptualized from various disciplinary and theoretical perspectives? How are global and transnational policy actors and networks influencing teacher policies and practices? What are the perspectives and experiences of teachers in local policy contexts? What do comparative research studies tell us about teachers and how their work and policy contexts influence their teaching? How have various countries implemented policies aimed at improving teacher quality and how have these policies influenced teachers and students? The international contributors represent a wide variety of scholars who identify global dynamics influencing policy discourses on teacher quality, and examine national and local teaching and policy environments influencing teacher policy development and implementation in various countries. Divided into five sections, the book brings together the latest conceptual and empirical studies on teacher quality and teacher policies to inform future policy directions for recruiting, educating, and supporting the teaching profession.

The book examines how the understanding of the global and the local has changed in response to ongoing reconfigurations between the state and society. It also emphasizes the importance of schooling as an institution both within and across national contexts, a holistic approach that helps us move beyond a conglomeration of isolated local events to pay attention to global trends. In this regard, the book underscores the richness of contextual factors that may create opportunities for innovation, or may serve as constraints in the implementation process. As a whole, the book brings new questions about globalization and the imperatives of education policy and implementation.

As with any industry, the education sector goes through frequent changes due to modern technological advancements. It is every educator’s duty to keep up with these shifting requirements and alter their teaching style to best fit the needs of their classroom. Pre-Service and In-Service Teacher Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications explores the current state of pre-service teacher programs as well as continuing education initiatives for in-service educators. It also emphasizes the growing role of technology in teacher skill development and training as well as key pedagogical developments and methods. Highlighting a range of topics such as teacher preparation programs, teaching standards, and fieldwork and practicum experiences, this multi-volume book is designed for pre-service teachers, teacher educators, researchers, professionals, and academics in the education field.

Utilizing a case study method and a Multiperspectival Approach, this volume presents a pioneering, in-depth study about China’s teacher education policy since the 1990s. It critically investigates the rational, dynamic and complex implementation process taking place at the micro institutional level for the transformations of teacher education institutions. The book first introduces the sociopolitical and cultural background of China’s teacher education system and its challenges under the condition of globalization, and illustrates major national initiatives for nurturing highly qualified teachers. It then explores new teachers’ identities in an era of enhanced professionalism, uncovers the ways they reflect China’s teacher education reform, and distills the rationales behind these policy actions. This is followed by an analytic presentation of the findings of the case study of a provincial normal university, with a particular focus on such core pieces of the implementation jigsaw as policy flow, the dynamism of implementation, sociopolitical and cultural confluence, and institutional barriers in the complex process. Lastly, the book unravels key recommendations and implications for policy implementation studies from the China policy case, and constructs a Chinese Zhong-Yong Model of policy implementation, and sheds new light on policy studies of teacher education reform in particular and public policy in general, which may be transferable to other sociopolitical contexts seeking to nurture world-class teachers and achieve educational excellence in a global age.

The volume considers teacher professionalization by examining how to create pipelines from secondary education into teaching; preparing teacher educators; creating linkages between providers of teacher education and the schools.

This volume investigates the history, contexts, agendas, and initiatives associated with the OECD’s educational impact globally. The goal is to present information, case studies and empirical research about the development of the OECD’s educational agenda as a whole.

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education reviews the evolution of education policy on initial teacher education as an indicator of the knowledge that is considered important for nation building. It also looks at research on approaches and structures to initial teacher learning as an indication of the intellectual and moral direction to which schooling must aspire. Contributors look at these dynamics across a range of societies including Australia, the Czech Republic, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, and the USA. Using a review of the literature approach within a comparative framework, the book seeks to answer the following questions for each country: What has been the evolution of different approaches to learning to teach in each setting, and what factors have influenced change over the years? What are the underlying theories that characterize past and current thinking about the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed by teachers and what evidence is used to support these theories? What does a review on the state of the knowledge about teacher education over the past 30 years reveal about the evolution of the research and knowledge traditions that have supported current and past innovations in teacher education? Maria Teresa Tatto and Ian Menter explore international variability in different conceptions of knowledge in the context of learning to teach and explore the way in which national and international influences interact in the developing trajectories of teacher education policy and practice, considering what knowledge is considered important for teachers to have.