As we tentatively emerge from the imposed isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic and as the status quo reasserts itself, it seems timely to consider the current state of teacher professionalism. This task seems critical, given the wider backdrop of the neoliberal policy pandemic that has driven the commodification and instrumentalization of education…

This paper adopts an inductive analytical approach to reviewing the major state policies to reform teacher education in China. Based on the perceived impact on teachers and teacher education, 21 policy documents have been selected for this review. Five themes emerge in the analysis, which include: Expansion of teacher education by institutional…

The alignment of professional development and teacher evaluation has been a growing concern in teacher professional development practices. The issue of how teacher evaluation can help authentic professional development is important in that teachers only learn what is real, useful and valuable to them. Based on our reflections on current…

This article offers a critical review of the impact of policy-induced changes on school teachers in the Chinese Mainland where educational reform has been an ongoing project for four decades. It addresses three aspects of the current state of teaching and the teaching profession: the contextual factors that have influenced their development; the…

Teaching and research are two inseparable components in higher education. There are continuous debates about the relationship between the two. Does good teaching always lead to good research, and vice versa? This paper critically examines the impact of current policy on the two academic practices and discusses how it shapes one's professional…

Internationalisation is a key element in the evolving role and function of the UK higher education (HE) sector. Its perceived benefits are promoted widely and sought assiduously. It has come to be believed by many practitioners that internationalisation and the quest for quality and status in HE are synonymous. In the current phase of…

Teacher education in the USA lives in a policy shadow world that is jumbled and unfocused because decision-makers do not see teacher education as a public good in and of itself. Rather, it is viewed as an instrument to achieve other, more important, policy goals. Consequently, teacher education policy tends to be parsed across fields and levels of…

This paper examines the extent to which political devolution has influenced the nature of education policy-making in Scotland, taking initial teacher education and early professional development as a case. Pre-devolution studies of the policy community in Scotland stressed the close relationships between the various stakeholders and the inherent…

Over the last 15 years, initial teacher education in England has been established as a national system, closely controlled by the government. One of the consequences of this move is that teacher education is now intimately bound up with changing national politics and policy priorities which reach down into the finest of detail of provision. In…

This article uses the new Decree on teacher education in Flanders, Belgium, as a case study to critically examine the changes in the conception of teacher professionalism in education policy. In this examination, the focus is on the "form of problematisation" (Foucault) that is enacted in the texts of the Decree. It will be argued that…

Teacher education in Australia is subject to a great deal of policy interest at both Federal and State levels; it is also part of education policy shifts for the whole university sector. This paper explores Australian teacher education policy in terms of its governance, focusing on three current "sites of contestation": university…

There is now unprecedented emphasis on teacher quality in the USA and in many nations around the world with extremely high expectations for teacher performance. Based on the assumption that education and the economy are inextricably linked, it is now assumed that teachers can--and should--teach all students to world-class standards, serve as the…

The purpose of the study reported upon in this paper was to determine what graduates of a teacher education program designed to prepare teachers who will work toward goals of equity and social justice were encountering in their schools and how they felt they were doing with regard to these aims and why. Eleven graduates in their second, fourth or…