Most teacher educators who work at institutes for higher vocational education have faced a new role since the European Community aimed to upgrade the general quality of education. Research tasks have been added as a new important core business for institutes that used to be mainly focused on education. Teacher educators therefore have to become…

Care in teaching has been widely investigated; however, little research has sought secondary pre-service teachers' understandings of caring and their potential responsibility to care for students. Accordingly, semi-structured interviews were employed with four focus groups, involving 12 (2 male and 10 female) participants. Data were analysed…

Many Hong Kong schools are concerned about how diverse learning needs of ethnic minority students could be better fulfilled. This study examines local teachers' constructs of assessment classroom environments. Using qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with 32 teachers from three secondary schools, this study shows ways in…

Today's American educational context is characterised by increasing standardisation coupled with heightened accountability. While some view standardisation as a lever for equity, many view it as problematic for the work of teachers. Efforts to improve student achievement by focusing on the activities of teachers have resulted in an over-riding…

This study investigates the socialization and professional experiences of primary school physical education teachers (PSPETs) in the Asian context of Hong Kong. A qualitative research design is adopted. The researcher used semi-structured interviews, supplemented by documentary sources (diaries) for conducting data collection. Eleven PSPETs…

Teachers play a key role in realizing successful changes in education. Among them are real "change agents" at both classroom and school level. To obtain insights into what characterizes these teachers, an exploratory study has been conducted by interviewing external experts, principals, and teachers (n = 20). An analysis of data resulted…

Previous research on the rewards found that teachers gain satisfaction in a sense of vocation, "making a difference", and the emotional rewards of "care" and "love", especially in whole-class teaching. The meaning of "making a difference" often remains unexplored however, and this article is an attempt to…

This study involves the program evaluation of the "Conversations About Education" pilot, developed as a community collaboration to offer professional development involving participants from a Faculty of Education, local school partners, and community organizations offering programming to Newcomers to Canada. The program sought to provide…

Studies of teachers' lives and careers rarely include a precise focus on subject teaching. This appears a limitation given the often strong connections there are between subject teaching and professional identity. With the intention of understanding the connections between the two better, the research adopted a case study methodology to describe…

Current professional development initiatives show a preference for whole school approaches. However, pedagogy related to English language learners (ELLs) is often not widely dispersed in New Zealand primary schools, impacting on teacher efficacy with these learners. This paper discusses findings from a qualitative study which aimed to identify…

Teachers often describe their first teaching job following graduation as a shocking experience. This description raises several questions: Do novice teachers actually have a lower level of coping than experienced teachers? Are there factors in the work environment that make coping difficult for all teachers at a school? This paper compares the…

This study reports on interviews with 24 beginning teachers about tensions they experienced regarding their professional identity. The interviewees reported a total of 59 tensions of tension that fell into three themes: (1) the change in role from student to teacher; (2) conflicts between desired and actual support given to students; and (3)…

International concern to raise educational standards and improve teacher quality has directed attention to the need to sustain career-long professional learning. Teacher induction and early professional learning (during years 2-6) have been associated with patterns of attrition and improved pupil outcomes. As the economic crisis impacts on public…

With the increasing concern about the high attrition rate among beginning teachers, it is essential that we come to a better understanding of why teachers leave the profession. This study explored differences between leavers and stayers in terms of the process of their resilience responses. Major psychological factors such as value, self-efficacy,…

When looking for answers to the question of academic (non)achievement of regular pupils and pupils with special needs, it is necessary to take into account the extraordinary complexity of factors, ranging from psychological across instructional to home environment variables. The academic achievement is not only a reflection of the pupil's…