Why is teacher education policy significant - politically, sociologically and educationally? While the importance of practice in teacher education has long been recognised, the significance of policy has only been fully appreciated more recently. Teacher education in times of change offers a critical examination of teacher education policy in the UK and Ireland over the past three decades, since the first intervention of government in the curriculum. Written by a research group from five countries, it makes international comparisons, and covers broader developments in professional learning, to place these key issues and lessons in a wider context.

Teacher Education through Active Engagement identifies and addresses a contemporary issue: the ways in which teaching and teacher education are articulated by politicians, civil servants, business leaders and educational entrepreneurs intent on profit-making in the current global neoliberal policy context. This is often characterised by narrow and ill-conceived ideas about teacher characteristics and competences; recruiting and fast-tracking graduates from elsewhere into the profession; the reform of teacher training with less emphasis on theory and academic study; a narrow focus on teachers’ core skills; and the promotion of training in model ‘teaching schools’. In this book contributors challenge this conceptualisation and demonstrate practitioners’ necessary intellectual activity to wrest back professional control. By drawing on practice-focused research carried out in sites of educational policy and practice, each chapter exemplifies for teachers, student teachers and teacher educators the sort of ‘knowledge work’ to coordinate a professional reply to non-educationalists who dictate the terms of teaching and teacher education. The book provides directions for encouraging critical thinking, analytical skills and political activism, which consider the needs and interests of diverse children and young people in real classrooms, real schools and real communities. Illustrated throughout with practice-focused research and drawing on the historical case of Winifred Mercier and her colleagues at the City of Leeds training college who challenged the establishment to leave a legacy of professional control, the book will appeal to practitioners, academics and researchers in the fields of teacher education and education studies.

A collaborative series with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education highlighting leading-edge research across Teacher Education, International Education Reform and Language Education.

The UK Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) worked for ten years to improve outcomes for learners in schools and other sectors through high quality research. One outcome of individual projects and across-Programme thematic work was the development of ten ‘evidence-informed’ principles for effective pedagogy. Synopses of these principles have been widely disseminated, particularly to practitioners. However, the evidence and reasoning underpinning them has not yet been fully explained. This book fills this gap by providing a scholarly account of the research evidence that informed the development of these principles, as well as offering some evidence of early take-up and impact. It also includes responses from highly-respected researchers throughout the world in order to locate the work in the broader international literature, to extend it by drawing on similar work elsewhere, to provide critique and to stimulate further development and debate. Principles for Effective Pedagogy contributes to international dialogue on effective teaching and learning, providing a focus for scholarly comment, sharing of expertise and knowledge accumulation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Research Papers in Education.