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Professionalism in teaching and the role of teacher education

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DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1849130

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION
2021, VOL. 44, NO. 1, 20–44
https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1849130

ARTICLE

Professionalism in teaching and the role of teacher education

Maria Teresa Tatto
Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In this article, I discuss the status of teaching as a profession using Received 16 June 2020
Gardner and Shulman’s framework emerging from their empirical Accepted 4 November 2020
examination of the professions in America and use Bernstein’s KEYWORDS
sociology of knowledge to help explain how recontextualizing Comparative international
agents struggle to dominate the construction and interpretation studies; evaluation research
of professionalism in teaching. I use data from a major cross- in teacher education;
national study of university-based teacher education to illustrate mathematics education;
efforts to define the professional knowledge needed for teaching teachers as professionals;
and the wide degree of variability in the opportunities provided to teacher education
teachers to learn such knowledge. The essential role of teacher
education in sustaining the teaching profession emerges very
clearly from these analyses. I conclude that the education field
needs to develop the capacity to ensure teachers’ professional
learning and that these efforts need to be informed by use-
inspired research and an inquiry culture in university-based teacher
education programmes.

The central task of teacher education is to develop professionals in education. The

definition of professionalism and how it is to be acquired however is widely diverse
across the field (Creasy 2015). This is not for lack of studies exploring the issue. Lortie
(1975) classical sociological study of school teachers examined issues of control and
autonomy as central characteristics that define (and constrain) teachers’ professional
status. Goodlad (1990, 70–71) outlined conditions for the profession including
a coherent body of knowledge and skills, professional control over candidates’ recruit-
ment, qualifications, and learning standards. Gardner and Shulman (2005) extensive
empirical study of the professions provide a more nuanced set of characteristics ranging
from developing a knowledge base, to the development of professional communities
committed to serve in the interest of societal welfare ethically and with integrity, high-
lighting aspirational goals for the professions.
But conceptions of teachers’ professionalism and more specifically conceptions of
teachers’ professional knowledge are highly contested (Oancea 2014). Challenges to the
professional status of teaching have important consequences for education as a discipline
(Furlong 2013). These challenges have been ongoing since teaching became a recognised
occupation and have only intensified after the transition of teacher education to higher
education and the introduction of market models to education. For instance, frequent

CONTACT Maria Teresa Tatto teresa.tatto@asu.edu Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona
State University Tempe, AZ 85297-1811, USA
© 2020 Association for Teacher Education in Europe
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 21

attacks in England that spanned almost a decade from 1969 to 1977 ‘placed the schools at
the root of wider economic and social problems [. . .] setting an ‘imagery of chaos’ that
legitimised a general ‘consensus of concern’ about education [. . .] and a need for urgent
solutions’ (Oancea 2014, 505, citing Ball 1995, 24). In America similar attacks against the
profession occurred twenty years later (Ravitch 2007) and continue to today. The most
important outcomes of these attacks in England and in the U.S. have been the introduc-
tion of alternative routes to teacher certification and of school-based approaches to
teacher training. These approaches pose a real risk to the professional status of teaching.
The displacement of teacher education from universities erodes the discipline’s research
base and its capacity to generate new knowledge thus directly threatening the central
purposes of faculties of education (Oancea 2014, 508).
Professions are constructed throughout time as distinct fractions struggle for jurisdic-
tion over the problems and knowledge that define the field (Abbott 1988; Lagemann
1997). The task is that of producing basic knowledge that in combination with practical
work would culminate in knowledge and ‘signature pedagogies’ that are seen as unique
and authoritative for a profession. In teaching, the struggle has been over the creation of
abstract knowledge unique to the occupation of educating children that then can be
translated into and informed by practice (Gardner and Shulman 2005). But professions can
also be disassembled from within and from without. In addition to political criticism
against teacher education, the increased regulation of teachers’ work and worth (e.g.,
through value-added teacher evaluations) exert enormous pressures on teachers and on
teacher education programmes effectively affecting the quality of the offer and of the
research production (Ravitch 2007). Within the profession aspects such as lack of agree-
ment on how to prepare teachers as professionals – including research preparation – lack
of a collaborative research agenda, faculty silos around the subjects of the school
curriculum, exclusive affiliation with qualitative methodologies, and lack of fruitful colla-
boration across the university and across programmes, among other factors (Lagemann
1997; Sleeter 2014), have rendered teachers silent through these transformations (Oancea
2014) and unable to engage in policymaking processes.
Many have argued that there is an urgent need to re-engage with those aspects that
make teaching a profession, in short to reclaim the place of education as a discipline
(Fueyo and Koorland 1997; Furlong 2013). The way to do this – it is argued – is through the
production of knowledge that addresses no only those aspects that make teaching
a profession but also key education questions about cognition, teaching and learning
(BERA 2014; Pring 2015). Such research must begin by considering what it means to be
a professional teacher (Winch, Oancea, and Orchard 2013).
The discussion of professionalism in teaching in this article is framed by Gardner and
Shulman (2005) work on the professions. Their definition is more comprehensive than
others (e.g., Goodlad 1990; Lortie 1975), and is based on an extensive analysis of the
professions emerging from two large-scale empirical studies of professional life in the U.S.,
‘The Preparations for the Professions Program’ (Sullivan and Rosin 2008) and ‘The Good
Work Project’ (Gardner 2010) in the mid-1990s. The Preparation for the Professions
Program ‘investigated the preparation for various professions offered by academic insti-
tutions, and compared across professions the approaches to teaching and learning that
these institutions used to ensure the development of professional understanding, skills
and integrity’ (Carnegie Foundation n.d.). The Good Work Project was motivated by
22 M. T. TATTO

attempting to understand how market models were affecting the professions, and the
application of ethical principles to the many challenges that such a model brings to the
stability of the professions (Gardner and Shulman 2005, 18). The definitions that emerged
from these two projects are useful when applied to the analysis of professionalism in
teaching especially as increased emphasis in market models continues to threaten in very
significant ways the teaching profession.
Bernstein’s (2000) notion of recontextualization agents illustrates the challenges
experienced by the discipline of education. Specifically, the tension represented by the
existence of an ‘official recontextualization field’ (ORF), and a ‘pedagogical recontextua-
lization field’ (PRF) suggests the sources of conflict and power struggle affecting the
profession. The ORF is represented by governments, education authorities and similar
which may operate as a centralised governance structure gaining more power over
education policy and all education matters. On the other hand, it is possible that more
power could be gained by the PRF represented by the profession such as teacher
education institutions, teacher educators and teachers whom as a consequence may
have more autonomy in organising the teacher education curriculum, establishing the
profession’s norms and purposes and greater independence from central authorities
(Tatto and Hordern 2017; Hordern and Tatto 2018).
The questions that this article addresses are:
1. What aspects define teaching as a profession and what do research trends say about
these aspects?
2. What opportunities to learn and engage with professional learning do teacher
education programmes offer?
3. What are the most important current challenges to the teaching profession and to
the field of education as a discipline?
The first question is addressed via a brief conceptual overview of the literature.
The second question is addressed using data gathered from a cross-national study of
the curriculum of teacher education to examine the claims identified in the literature
overview. The third question is conceptual and brings together the findings from the
literature overview and from the study of the curriculum to examine aspects that need
attention from the field, and more specifically what should be the role of teacher
education.

Literature review: what aspects define teaching as a profession and what do

research trends say about these aspects?
According to Gardner and Shulman (2005) there are six key aspects that characterise
a profession, I summarise these below and cite research literature that explores how these
aspects are addressed in the research in teacher education and teaching.

Teaching’s dual ethical responsibility and decision making under technical and
ethical uncertainty
The first characteristic, a ‘commitment to serve in the interest of clients in particular and
the welfare of the society in general’ highlights a ‘dual ethical responsibility.’ In teaching
that responsibility becomes that of serving the learning needs of one’s pupils and families
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 23

(as outlined by the PRF) while at the same time aligning teaching practice according to
the interests of the larger society (as outlined by the ORF) (Gardner and Shulman 2005,
14). A tension is created if these responsibilities are in conflict. According to Gardner and
Shulman (2005) failure to deal sensibly with this dual ethical responsibility frequently
creates the conditions that they have termed “compromised practice’ (p. 15). The tension
between the ORF and the PRF seems to be exacerbated in societies such as England, and
the U.S., that have strongly embraced the market model in education (Tatto et al. 2018;
Tatto and Menter 2019). While for teachers the primary responsibility is to develop
independent learners and critical thinkers an aim that is aligned with a humanistic
model and generally promoted by teacher education programmes, market models have
redefined the purposes of education as creating the workers that will be needed to run
a successful future economy and to compete with other nations at the global level using
test results as indicators of teacher education and teacher effectiveness (Goldhaber 2019;
Hanushek 2011). Teachers are frequently torn between making sure their pupils experi-
ence authentic learning, and preparing them to pass achievement tests. A key question is
how are teacher education programmes preparing future teachers for these dilemmas?
In their article ‘Professional ethics education for future teachers’ Maxwell and Schwimmer
(2016) explain that by becoming a professional the individual joins a historical community of
practice with a general purpose to which one must be committed. That community of
practice has ‘its own body of practical and theoretical knowledge and its own set of
collective norms [. . .] which allow professionals to go beyond their subjective intuitions
[. . .] to judge and act in reference to collective standards’ in other words to make profes-
sional judgements (p. 358). These authors found at best only a terse treatment of ethics in
the research on teacher education – in contrast with other professions especially those that
involve decisions that deeply affect the lives of human beings, most notably medicine.
This disregard of ethics in teacher education is not universal, and it was not always the
case in the U.S. In the U.S. interest in the ethics of teaching as a formal requirement in
teacher education came to a peak in the mid 1980’s with the publication of The Ethics of
Teaching (Strike and Soltis 1985). Thirty years later in their literature review of research on
the teaching of professional ethics for future teachers Maxwell and Schwimmer (2016)
conclude that research in this field is scarce and lacking in quality and that while much
work exists calling for the importance of ethics in teacher education, such work ‘have
yielded little in terms of an impact on teacher education [and that] mandatory ethics-
related courses are vanishingly rare in programmes of study in teaching’ (p. 355). In
a previous study Warnick and Silverman (2011) confirm this situation finding that profes-
sional ethics is a neglected topic in teacher education programmes.
Failure to induct teachers into the ethics of teaching contributes not only to weaken
the profession but the discipline of education. It also has important consequences as
teachers develop the ability to make informed and appropriate decisions ‘leading to
skilled actions’ in situations of technical and ethical uncertainty, the second character-
istic outlined by Gardner and Shulman (2005). According to Gardner and Shulman
(2005) uncertainty creates two challenges for professional practice and education,
‘professionals must be trained to operate at the [. . .] limits of their previous experience
and must be prepared to learn from the consequences of their actions to develop new
understandings and routines [. . .] and must develop ways of exchanging those under-
standings with other professionals so the entire professional community benefits from
24 M. T. TATTO

their insight’ (p. 15). This particular characteristic could be the greatest challenge that
the teaching profession confronts. As argued by Zeichner (2014) as a profession, we
have not been able to build a cumulative body of knowledge or expertise that can
support teaching decision making in novel and uncertain conditions. It is important to
note however that this situation is not inherent in teaching but it may reflect an
important gap in the opportunities to learn provided to future teachers. In this sense
teacher preparation may be failing the teaching profession.

Knowledge base for the profession, practice learning, and professional learning
communities
Three additional characteristics of a profession are closely related as they deal with
knowledge and learning and will be discussed together in this section. These character-
istics represent what could be conceived as the exclusive domain of the PRF – we will
however see that here too the ORF represents significant challenges.

Knowledge base for the profession

Defined as a ‘claim to a theoretical knowledge base–a body of research, conceptions and
traditions that is the normative touchstone for [the profession],’ such theoretical knowl-
edge base develops independently of and in conjunction with practice, a condition that
can only be satisfied ‘in the world of higher education’ (Gardner and Shulman 2005, 15).
Purinton (2012, 349) in a review of the research on the knowledge base in teacher
education and teacher professionalism reveals that such knowledge is highly contested.
He argues that while ‘educational researchers have increasingly paid attention to how
practitioners can access and utilise research knowledge [the] field still has been unable to
create a research tradition and corresponding diffusion models that directly and uni-
formly influence teachers’ practice.’ He argues that there are a number of reasons for this
including competing interests and conflicting research assumptions about knowledge in
education. He calls for ‘the unification of a scholarly community [whose task is to provide]
tangible theory and evidence that can be explicitly used by professors of education,
student teacher supervisors, instructional coaches, professional development providers,
and teachers to guide their daily work practices.’
The research in the field is also seen as weak (Sleeter 2014) and has failed to connect
‘content-based learning with the significant research that exists on cognitive and social
learning processes’ (Purinton 2012). The research that has used Shulman (1987) knowl-
edge framework including knowledge of content, pedagogical content, pedagogy, stu-
dents, curriculum, and community has shown some promise (in the U.S. and beyond see
Ball, Thames & Phelps, 2008; Schneider and Plasman 2011; Tatto et al. 2012) but this work
is not uniformly strong across content areas.
As Oancea (2014) reminds us the introduction of market models to education is
contributing to erode the discipline's research base and the universities' capacity to
generate new knowledge.

Learning from and in practice

Practice is defined as a ‘mastery of a domain which includes a specialised set of ‘technical
skills of analysis and argument [. . .] action and interaction [and] performances unique to
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 25

the profession.’ Practice is assumed to be consistent with the ‘knowledge base and ethical
norms of the profession’ ensuring uniformity ‘between the norms of the academy and the
norms of the professional practice community’ (Gardner and Shulman 2005, 15).
The literature contains numerous examples of studies that have explored learning from
and in practice, for instance, Lampert and Graziani (2009) study of instructional activities
as a tool for teachers’ and teacher educators’ learning, Forzani (2014) study of practice-
based teacher education, and similar.
According to Purinton (2012, 356–357), the research that is needed to learn from practice
should be ‘structured for practitioner knowledge [to] assist teachers in moment-to-moment
responses to student questions, and in designing units of study based on an understanding
of particular student needs [and] this knowledge must be seen as definitive.’ Thus, con-
structing the knowledge base for the profession and learning from and in practice go hand
in hand. In terms of transferring knowledge of clinical skills to practitioners, Purinton (2012)
argues that the field of education has been more effective in exploring practice-based
education than in exploring the basic knowledge area by ‘increasing precision in practice
through ongoing mentorship, consistent application of research, collaborative and reflec-
tive conversations about classroom situations, regular video analysis, and intensive ongoing
professional development’ however these still would need to be taken to scale.
Zeichner (2012, 376) however identifies a number of issues with the turn to practice-
based teacher education including ‘the task of developing a system that unlike perfor-
mance-based systems in the past is evidence-based, manageable, and sustainable, and
that does not ignore important aspects of good teaching.’

Professional learning communities

At the core of the professions is ‘the continuing need to learn from one’s experience [. . .]
through the very experience of engaging in professional practice thoughtfully and
reflectively [in] the context of a smooth and functioning professional learning community’
(Gardner and Shulman 2005, 15).
To accomplish the work of building a solid knowledge base, and a practice-based
research agenda, the notion of a functioning professional learning community is essential.
Yet here too the field has its challenges. Lagemann (1997) has documented the troubled
history of education research in the U.S. as one marked by contests among different
groups such as ‘scholars of education, scholars in other fields and disciplines, school
administrators, and teachers [. . .] in which professionalisation is seen as an ongoing
competition to secure jurisdiction; [these] jurisdictional challenges have [. . .] precluded
sustained agreement about the methods and focus of the field’ (p. 5). The push to
compete and to define the field has had as a consequence the isolation of educationists
from their peers in other supporting fields such as psychology but also in the base
disciplines that frame the school curriculum. Lagemann (1997) concludes that the search
for ‘professionalisation has been a barrier to the effective linking of knowledge and action
in education [and that] the forces that have made it difficult for disciplinary scholars,
educationists and practitioners of education to collaborate have limited possibilities for
effective research’ in education (p. 15). She calls for a plurality of disciplines in the study of
educational research by ‘surmounting the constraints of professionalization to develop
more truly equal, genuinely respectful, and effectively collaborative relationships among
the groups most directly involved in the study and practice of education’ (p. 15). This call
26 M. T. TATTO

is echoed by Labaree (1998), and by Pallas (2001) who argue for epistemological diversity
in educational research, and more recently by the BERA Inquiry into the role of research in
teacher education in the UK (BERA 2014).
According to salient trends in the literature, the conclusion seems to be that the PRF has
been unsuccessful in part because it has failed to produce and effectively disseminate
authoritative research to inform the knowledge base for the profession, including standards
for practice among professional learning communities. This has allowed not only other
groups to claim jurisdiction but has also allowed the ORF a more powerful role in the
oversight and monitoring of quality in professional education and practice.

Oversight and monitoring of quality in professional education and practice

The sixth and final characteristic put forward by Gardner and Shulman (2005) consists in
‘learning to practice as a member of a professional community’ responsible for the
oversight and monitoring of quality in both practice and professional education’ (p. 16).
Across the world there has been a rise of accountability systems (internal and external to
the profession) in the quest for quality (Cochran-Smith et al. 2017; Tatto [2006] 2007). In
the U.S. there has been a transformation of the role of the PRF and the ORF with the latter
gradually assuming more control. For instance, the National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education (NCATE) was funded in 1954 with support from the American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) to accredit teacher education
programmes in colleges and universities. The accreditation was based on a series of
standards that required the unit’s monitoring of the knowledge, skills and professional
dispositions of candidates, the existence of systems of assessment and evaluation to
collect data on candidates and unit performance, the nature of field experiences and
clinical practice as well as the opportunities to learn to work with diverse populations,
faculty qualifications, performance and development, and the unit’s governance and
resources for the adequate preparation of candidates to meet professional, state, and
institutional standards. The NCATE model relied on an external team of evaluators whose
task was to produce a report describing how well the unit meet the standards and
recommend areas for improvement (NCATE, 2008).
An alternative model which can be seen as an attempt by the PRF to retake control of
programme evaluation was represented by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council
(TEAC) which emerged in the 1990s and emphasised continuous self-study by the
programme faculty to serve not only accreditation purposes but importantly the parti-
cular needs of the programme and candidates – while enthusiastically embraced by
a number of institutions, TEAC was relatively short-lived and never fully substituted the
NCATE. Both NCATE and TEAC were replaced in 2013 with a new model of accreditation
under the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) a change that
came as a response to ORF regulations driven initially by the NCLB legislation1 and
continued under ESSA2 using pupils’ tests as a key indicator of teaching quality, and
school and teacher education effectiveness. CAEP (2013) has five standards regulating
content and pedagogical knowledge; clinical partnerships and practice; candidate quality,
recruitment and selectivity; programme impact; and provider quality assurance and
continuous improvement. These standards show a definite shift from a concern with
the process of learning to teach (as evidenced by the previous NCATE and TEAC
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 27

standards) to a concern with K-12 student outcomes as the key indicators of teacher
education ‘impact’ on teacher effectiveness. For instance, Standard 4 reads:

The provider demonstrates the impact of its completers on P-12 student learning and
development, classroom instruction, and schools, and the satisfaction of its completers
with the relevance and effectiveness of their preparation.

CAEP (2013)

The PRF while initially exerted more control and created standards for practice and
professional education it has ceded increasingly more control to the ORF, and thus
monitoring practices fall short of ‘critically reviewing claims for new ideas and techniques
and disseminating the worthy ones widely within the community of practice and for
overseeing the quality of performances at all stages of the career’ (Gardner and Shulman
2005, 16). The PRF has failed to effectively challenge the ORF’s introduction of assess-
ments and external evaluations which along with curriculum reform have historically
served as powerful policy tools to effect change in education systems.
The external accountability movement in teacher education has raised serious con-
cerns from educationists not only in the U.S. (Feuer et al. 2013; Floden 2012; Tatto et al.
2016), but internationally (Tatto 2007). The data analytics that has emerged from this
orientation has introduced different sets of actors into the field of education many of
them econometricians, who are producing policy-oriented reports in alignment with the
ORF market-oriented agenda. These new sets of actors are actively publishing in econom-
ics and education journals and are contributing to re-define the conceptions of research
in education, the purposes of teacher education and of teaching more generally. For
instance, a publication in the Economics of Education Review by Chingos and Peterson
(2010) argue that ‘it’s easier to pick a good teacher than to train one.’ Goldhaber (2019) an
econometrician, reviews evidence most of it emerging from administrative data using
value-added models3 (VAMs) to outline an agenda for research on teacher education
where he proposes the use of VAMs to determine the success or failure of teacher
preparation programmes; this paper was published in the Journal of Teacher Education.
A chain of publications along similar lines continues to contribute to the sense of
underperformance affecting the profession (see for a few of many examples Gansle, Noell,
and Burns 2012; Goldhaber, Liddle, and Theobald 2013; Hanushek 2011; Henry et al. 2012).
The problem with this activity is that these econometricians seem to be operating in silos
(e.g., no educational research by educationists is cited or rarely cited—again see
Goldhaber, 2019), and collaboration with educationists is rare), these studies rely on
a discredited methodology known as value-added methods or VAMs (see Sass,
Semykina, and Harris 2014) with pupils tests as the ultimate indicator of effectiveness,
and is done mostly by individuals who are not immersed in the work of school teaching or
of teacher education. Lagemann (1997) would see this as a clear contestation for jurisdic-
tion from yet another group of non-educationists. Worrisome as well as surprising is the
seeming embrace that econometricians are receiving from educationists. In his historical
and sociological analysis, the ‘Lure of Statistics for Educational researchers’ Labaree 2011,
621) warns educationists of these developments:

‘One problem with educational researchers’ seduction by the quantitative turn is that it
deflects attention away from many of the most important issues in the field, which are not
28 M. T. TATTO

easily reduced to standardized quanta. Another is that by adopting this rationalized, quanti-
fied, abstracted, statist, and reductionist vision of education, educational policymakers risk
imposing reforms that will destroy the local practical knowledge that makes the ecology of
the classroom function effectively. Quantification, [. . .] may be useful for the professional
interests of [. . .] researchers, but it can be devastating for school and society.’

This abridged review of key trends in the literature on professionalism in teaching and
teacher education has drawn primarily from the literature published in English most of it is
U.S. or U.K. based. It is important to note however that in other countries, notably in
Finland and in Ireland, these trends are different. Future teachers are thoroughly prepared
in research methods and are thus able to make significant contributions to the production
of knowledge in education. Teaching to the test is not a concern for teachers, and the PRF
and ORF collaborate in the evaluation and improvement of teacher education (e.g.,
Ireland Teaching Council forthcoming; Walker and Sahlberg 2020).

What opportunities to learn and engage with professionalism in teaching do

teacher education programmes offer?
This section presents results from an empirical cross-national study of mathematics
teacher education created and implemented by an interdisciplinary team of researchers
including teacher educators. The results illustrate the strength of the professional field
and the degree of variability across programmes’ opportunities to learn offered to future
teachers in the countries participating in the study.

Methodology and methods

The data come from document analysis of the curriculum of mathematics teacher educa-
tion for secondary mathematics teachers as part of a major cross-national empirical study
of pre-service teacher education, the 2008 Teacher Education and Development Study in
Mathematics or TEDS-M (here I must disclose that I am the director and principal
investigator of the study). TEDS-M focussed on mathematics as a domain of knowledge
that is considered to have a strong grammar (Bernstein 1999; Hordern 2017) and thus the
hypothesis is that the field is likely to agree on the key dimensions of professionalism in
teaching explored above.
The curriculum study is in itself an important effort by the PRF to define the profes-
sional field in mathematics education.

Data sources
The programme syllabi for primary and secondary mathematics education were collected
from a representative sample of programmes in each participating country. Additional
data came from a questionnaire administered to a representative sample of future
secondary teachers across the participating countries asking them about their opportu-
nities to learn (OTL) offered by their programmes.
The analysis of the curriculum and the OTL responses for future secondary teachers
in three of the seventeen participating countries are presented in this article.4
Germany, Poland and the U.S. were selected because of their similarities and differ-
ences (see Table 1). These three countries are democracies and have decentralised
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 29

systems of government. In different degrees in these countries the PRF seems to exert
more control over the professionalisation of teaching and over the configuration of
their curriculum than the ORF, with a stronger role in Germany and Poland, and
a weaker role in the U.S. The strong traditions in Germany on educational theory and
pedagogy, and the philosophical and hermeneutic reasoning is dominant in educa-
tional thought, in contrast with a lesser emphasis in these areas in Poland and the
U.S. where attention to the disciplines (e.g. mathematics and science) is more marked.
In the U.S. attention to diversity is emphasised at all levels of education more so than in
Germany and Poland. Such emphases may shape the curriculum of teacher education
programmes in unique ways. The PRF in the participating countries in TEDS-M con-
tributed to the creation and implementation of the coding scheme that served to
analyse the curriculum reflecting agreement over professional knowledge for teachers,
and providing the opportunity to examine variance across institutions in the partici-
pating countries.

Table 1. Number of Participating Programmes Offering Secondary Teaching Credentials, Future

Secondary Teachers within Countries, and Demographics.
Number of Future Secondary Teachers
Number of Participating Participating Demographics Means (Standard
Programmes Offering Preparation Future Teachers Deviation)
to Teach at the Secondary Level Sample size/ Proportion Prior
Country (National Sample) Valid N SES Age Female Attainment*
Germany 28 771 / 620 .41 28.98 0.62 3.32
(.94) (4.91) (0.48) (0.88)
Poland 35 298 / 247 -0.11 23.13 0.81 3.28
(.86) (2.00) (0.48) (0.95)
USA (public 72 607 / 461 0.46 25.26 0.69 3.88
institutions only) (0.84) (6.45) (0.28) (1.00)
* 1 = below average for year level; 5 = Always at top of year level.
Source: Tatto, 2013, p. 241-251.

Analysis
For each country, the programme syllabi were carefully read by curriculum experts in
a 3-day workshop to develop the coding scheme (in Tables 2 and 7 below). After the
workshop, the coding scheme was then validated by a larger group of experts in each
country. In a follow-up 3-day workshop the collected syllabi from a small sample of
programmes were coded. Rounds of coding served to adjust or redefine topics until
agreement was reached across all countries and syllabi. A team of coders in each country
completed the syllabi analysis.
While the TEDS-M team also analysed the mathematics school curriculum, and the
mathematics curriculum in higher education, in this article I only focus on two key
components of teacher education that provide future teachers with the opportunities
to learn the specialised knowledge that allows them to enter the professional field:
instruction in general pedagogy (GPK), and instruction on content knowledge peda-
gogy–in this case of mathematics (MPCK). Similarly, another essential aspect is the
practicum which engages teacher candidates in the pedagogical work of the profession
in authentic educational settings supported by a formal school–university partnership.
30 M. T. TATTO

For coding purposes, the practicum was considered an element of GPK. The codes per
topic were aggregated for analysis.
The future teacher questionnaire analysis was done using descriptive statistics and is
documented in detail in Tatto (2013).
In the sections below, I present the results of the curriculum analysis and OTL for
general pedagogy and mathematics content pedagogy. Together they address five of the
six characteristics as outlined by Gardner and Shulman (2005), and represent an important
agreement among the PRF. The GPK curriculum domain addresses teaching’s dual ethical
responsibility and decision making under technical and ethical uncertainty plus the
pedagogical knowledge base for teaching including learning from and in practice, and
in professional learning communities. The MPCK curriculum domain covers the mathe-
matics knowledge base for mathematics education. The sixth category (oversight and
monitoring) is presented in a separate section below.

General pedagogical knowledge

Shulman (1987, 8) first defined general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) as ‘broad principles
and strategies of classroom management and organisation that appear to transcend
subject matter’ as well as knowledge about learners and learning, assessment, and
educational contexts and purposes. Grossman and Richert (1988, 54) added that GPK
‘includes knowledge of theories of learning and general principles of instruction, an
understanding of the various philosophies of education, general knowledge about lear-
ners, and knowledge of the principles and techniques of classroom management.’ The
TEDS-M researchers broadened this definition when creating the coding categories
showing the substantial knowledge expected of teachers (see Table 2).

General pedagogy findings

Table 3 shows the number and type of programmes preparing teachers to teach lower
and upper secondary mathematics (PGT5 and PGT6, respectively) in Germany, Poland, and
the United States. The proportion of programmes reporting having courses across differ-
ent GPK topics is indicated as 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100% in the shaded squares. The table reveals
uneven coverage of some topics in teacher education programmes across countries as
well as within countries. The gaps are more noticeable in areas such as the History of
Education and Educational Systems, Methods of Educational Research (where the propor-
tion of institutions including courses on methods of educational research ranged from
zero to less than 50%), and on Counselling, Advising Students, and Pastoral Care. With the
exception of one programme type in Poland, there is also uneven coverage of Philosophy
of Education which importantly includes ethics and moral education.
The category ‘Practical Knowledge of Teaching’ refers to the opportunities to learn in
field experiences and contains a wide range of topics from learning how to teach diverse
students, to the development of lesson plans, to classroom assessment and management
among others, and represents the application of theory learned in earlier courses such as
student motivation and classroom management and assessment. While a period of
practicum seems to be a universal offer across programmes (as indicated by the solid
squares) TEDS-M researchers found that coding the syllabi for this domain provided only
a rough indicator of the variety in practicum experiences provided to future teachers.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 31

Table 2. General Pedagogy Topics and Subtopics Across Programmes for Future Secondary Teachers
as Defined by TEDS-M Curriculum Experts.
History of Education and Educational Systems
● Characteristics of development and international systems
(not your country)
● Historical development of the national system
Educational Psychology
● Motivational theory
● Theories of psychological development, cognitive develop-
ment, and intelligence
● Learning theory
● Teaching and learning with the framework of multiple
intelligence
Philosophy of Education
● Philosophy of education and general philosophy
● Knowledge and appreciation of educational theory (includ-
ing meaning of educational goals)
● Educational ethics and moral education
● Education and epistemology
● Education and humanism
Sociology of Education
● Social status of teachers
● Purpose and function of education in society
● Organisation of current educational systems
● Organisation and culture of schooling and school
● Social conditions, social change, social development, social
resources and school education
● Diversity (indigenous people, cultural, language, gender
and special needs)
● Educational policies, reform, and current educational issues
Practical Knowledge of Teaching (Practicum)
● Knowing how to teach students of different abilities
● Knowing how to teach students with different linguistic,
cultural and economic backgrounds and special needs
● Moral responsibility towards diverse pupils
● Use of data in making decisions regarding students
● How to motivate students
For ease of reading the code numbers are not included, however each domain has a code and a sub-code for the
particular topics for instance 2. Educational Psychology, 2.1 Motivational theory, and so on.
● Comparative education
● Relations of education and other topics (including
culture, economy, society, politics)
Introduction to Education or Theories of
Schools
● Goals of schooling (institution of schooling)
● Purpose and function of education
● Role of teacher
● Curriculum theory and theory of curriculum
development
● Teacher-student relations
● School administration and leadership (including
personnel management, school finance, etc.)
● Education and legal issues
● Teacher professional development
Principles of Instruction
● Didactic/teaching methods and models
● Instructional theory and instructional design
Methods of Educational Research
Classroom management
● Theory of classroom management
● Management of classroom community and learn-
ing environment
● Classroom rules and handling of improper beha-
viour
Assessment and Measurement Theory
● Types and functions of assessment
● Purposes, reliability and validity of assessment
● Analysis and design of examinations
Counselling, Advising Students, and Pastoral
Care
● Basic theories and models in counselling
● Professional ethics of counselling
● Training for skills and ability of counselling
Instructional Media and Operation
● Theories of media design
● Developing skills and abilities for media design
● Use of ICT and other media to support instruction
● Learning styles
● Develop lesson plans
● Classroom assessment
● How to structure content
● How to manage classroom discourse
● Strategies to deal with behaviour problems (ex:
aggression)
● How to communicate and/or engage parents
● General cooperation among teachers (e.g., mar-
shalling resources at school)

TEDS-M researchers uncovered great variability in the activities that constitute

a practicum within and across countries (see Tatto et al. 2012, ch.3). In the US for instance
Youngs and Grogan (2013, 264) report that ‘there are no national requirements concern-
ing practicum and field experiences for primary and lower-secondary mathematics can-
didates programmes and states also vary with regard to the features of and requirements
for the practicum [for instance as] of 2007/2008, 39 of 50 states required 5 to 18 weeks of
supervised student teaching, while 11 states did not require student teaching.’
32 M. T. TATTO

Table 3. General Pedagogy Topics for Future Secondary Teachers in the TEDS-M Teacher Education
Curriculum Study

Note as well that while the GPK topics were considered essential in the professional
formation of teachers, there were cross national differences and in many cases differences
within nations. In other words, while there is agreement on the categories used to code
the course syllabi in teacher education, it was difficult to find universal coverage for all of
these categories. An important question is how much culture and tradition determine
coverage of knowledge that is considered essential across the PRF participating in the
TEDS-M study.
Of importance is not only what the programmes aim to teach but whether future
teachers report having had the opportunity to acquire the intended professional

Table 4. Secondary Future Teachers Reporting Opportunity to Learn General Pedagogy Topics by
Programme-Type (GPK).
Programme Type Country N Mean Proportion SE SD % Missing
PGT 5 – Lower secondary (to grade 10 maximum) Germany 397 .61 .02 .23 1.6
Poland 158 .75 .02 .21 0.0
USA 129 .87 .01 .15 25.6
PGT 6 – Lower & Upper Secondary (to grade 11 and above) Germany 343 .59 .01 .24 5.9
Poland 137 .58 .03 .27 5.7
USA 368 .78 .01 .20 17.4
Source: Tatto et al. (2012), 186
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 33

knowledge. For instance, Table 4 shows future secondary mathematics teachers’ report on
the opportunities they had to learn general pedagogy (in proportions). The table shows
reduced opportunities to learn GPK by upper secondary teachers in contrast with their
lower secondary counterparts.

Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge

According to Shulman (1987) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a special
knowledge domain that distinguishes teachers from other subject specialists, and
allows teachers to interpret and transform subject-matter knowledge to facilitate
student learning. Key elements are: knowledge of representations of subject matter
(or content knowledge); understanding of students’ conceptions of the subject and
the learning and teaching implications that are associated with the specific subject
matter. Additional components of the knowledge base for teaching include

Table 5. Mathematics Pedagogy Topics and Subtopics Across Programs for Future Secondary Teachers
as Defined by TEDS-M Curriculum Experts.
Theories/Models of Mathematics Ability and
Thinking
Nature and Development of Mathematics
Ability and Thinking
Aspects of Mathematical Ability and Thinking
● Developing mathematical concepts
● Reasoning, argumentation, proving
● Abstracting, generalising
● Carrying out procedures (algorithms)
● Application
● Modelling
Mathematical Problems and Solutions
● Analyse problems
● Problem posing
● Solving problems
Mathematics Instruction
● Representation of mathematics content
● Selection and sequencing the mathematics
content
● Teaching methods (e.g. discovery learning, etc.)
● Student difficulties (misconceptions)
● Using calculations
● Using computers
● Using other manipulations (physical models,
blocks, etc.)
● Use of mathematics language and symbols
● Managing classroom communication
● Diagnosing and assessing student achievement
● Homework
Developing Mathematics Teaching Plans
Analysing/Observing/Reflecting on
Mathematics Teaching
Knowledge of Mathematics Standards and
Curriculum
For ease of reading the code numbers are not included, however each domain has a code and a sub-code for the
particular topics for instance 3. Aspects of Mathematical Ability and Thinking; 3.1 Developing mathematical concepts,
and so on.
Studying and Selecting Textbooks and Instructional
Materials
Knowledge of Mathematics Standards and Curriculum
Studying and Selecting Textbooks and Instructional
Materials
Methods of Presenting Main Mathematics Concepts
● Numbers
● Geometry (including analytic geometry)
● Algebra (equations, functions, linear algebra, etc.)
● Analysis (calculus)
● Trigonometry
● Probability and statistics
● Connections between mathematical areas
● Developing mathematical ability and thinking
Foundations of Mathematics
● Mathematics and philosophy
● Mathematics epistemology
● History of mathematics and mathematics education
Context of Mathematics Education
● Role of mathematics in society
● International approaches in mathematics education
● Gender/ethnic aspects of mathematics achievement
● Cooperate with colleagues on content and teaching
● Special needs (mathematically gifted students, students
with special needs, etc.)
Affective Issues (Beliefs, Attitudes, Anxiety, etc.)
● Beliefs and attitudes
● Mathematics anxiety
34 M. T. TATTO

knowledge of the school curriculum; knowledge of educational contexts; and

knowledge of the purposes of education. Because of their subject expertise the
PRF would be expected to maintain more control of the OTL offered to teachers
and thus more variability across programmes may be the result. As in the case of
GPK the TEDS-M researchers expanded this definition (see Table 5).

Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge findings

In contrast with opportunities to learn GPK, there was more variability in the area of
MPCK (see Table 6). In Germany there was universal emphasis on the topics of
Mathematics Instruction, Developing of Mathematics Teaching Plans, and in
Analyzing/Observing/Reflecting on Mathematics Teaching for both types of lower
and upper secondary programmes. Universal coverage is seen in Poland concerning
Developing Mathematics Teaching Plans for both programme types; upper secondary
programmes emphasise Analyzing/Observing/Reflecting on Mathematics, and learning
the Knowledge of Mathematics Standards and Curriculum; and lower secondary pro-
grammes’ emphasis is on Studying and Selecting Textbooks and Instructional Materials.
In the U.S. the only topic uniformly covered by all programmes is learning
Mathematical Problems and Solutions.

Table 6. Mathematics Pedagogy Topics for Future Secondary Teachers in the TEDS-M Teacher
Education Curriculum Study
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 35

Table 7 shows the opportunity to learn those topics as reported by future second-
ary teachers and these reports seem to be very consistent with results of the syllabi
analysis with just over 50% of secondary future teachers in Germany reporting
opportunities to learn mathematics pedagogy topics in contrast with over 70% of
secondary future teachers in Poland and the U.S.

Table 7. Proportion of Topics in Mathematics Pedagogy Studied by Program-Type as Reported by

Future Teachers
Program Type Country N Mean Proportion SE SD % Missing
PGT 5 - Lower secondary (to grade 10 maximum) Germany 405 0.52 0.02 0.24 1.2
Poland 158 0.76 0.02 0.17 0.0
USA 129 0.78 0.02 0.18 26.0
PGT 6 - Lower & Upper Secondary (to grade 11 and Germany 353 0.60 0.02 0.29 2.6
above) Poland 140 0.71 0.02 0.20 0.0
USA 369 0.72 0.02 0.23 17.3
Source: Tatto et al., 2012, p. 184

In sum while the PRF has clearly outlined the professional curriculum of mathe-
matics education, the challenge seems to be the extent to which there is consistency
in the opportunities to learn available to future teachers across programmes within
and across countries. The sixth category of professionalism, having to do with over-
sight and monitoring by the profession has the potential to play a key role in
strengthening the profession.

Oversight and monitoring of quality in practice and professional education

The last category from Gardner and Shulman’s framework has to do with oversight and
monitoring of quality in teaching and teacher education. The TEDS-M study interviewed
country teacher educators to ask about their regulatory systems in teacher education.
Table 8 summarises the results. Category 1 shows countries that in 2008 were operating
with an unregulated teacher education system, and category 4 shows countries that have
a rigorous system of regulations. Germany is found in category 2, while Poland is in

Table 8. Accreditation Systems for Teacher Education, TEDS-M 2008.

Regulation of Teacher Education Countries
Category 1: Countries with unregulated teacher education systems or Chile, Philippines, Georgia, Oman
voluntary accreditation only
Category 2: Countries with agencies responsible for the accreditation Germany, Spain, Switzerland
of higher education institutions, but that have limited requirements
with respect to evaluating specific teacher education programs
Category 3: Countries with agencies responsible for the accreditation Malaysia, Norway, Poland
of teacher education institutions, but based mainly on internal
evaluations conducted by institutions; no independent, external
evaluation
Category 4: Countries with external evaluation and accreditation of Botswana, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Russian
teacher education providers by a government, statutory, or Federation, Thailand, United States
professional agency. Power to disaccredit programs
Special case: Singapore
Source: Tatto et al. (2012), 47
36 M. T. TATTO

Table 9. Quality Assurance Mechanisms in Teacher Education, 2008.

Accreditation of Entry to the Relative
teacher educa- teaching strength of
Entry into Teacher Education tion programs profession QA system
Control over sup- Selection stan-
ply of teacher Promotion of dards for entry to
education teaching as an teacher
students attractive career education
Botswana MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE LIMITED Moderate
Canada MODERATE STRONG LIMITED MODERATE LIMITED Moderate
Chile LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED Low
Chin. Taipei STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG High
Georgia LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED Low
Germany MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE STRONG Moderate/
High
Malaysia STRONG MODERATE LIMITED MODERATE LIMITED Moderate
Norway LIMITED LIMITED MODERATE MODERATE LIMITED Moderate/
Low
Oman (sec) STRONG MODERATE LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED Low
Philippines LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED MODERATE Low
Poland MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE LIMITED Moderate
Russian Fed. STRONG MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE LIMITED Moderate/
high
Singapore STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG MODERATE High
Spain LIMITED MODERATE LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED Moderate/
Low
Switzerland LIMITED MODERATE MODERATE MODERATE LIMITED Moderate
Thailand MODERATE LIMITED LIMITED MODERATE LIMITED Low
(sec)
USA LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED MODERATE MODERATE Moderate
Key:
Strong QA Moderately Limited QA
procedures strong QA procedures
procedures
Source: Tatto et al. (2012), 51

category 3. The main distinction with category 4 in which the U.S. is located, is an external
evaluation system where the ORF has power to disaccredit programmes.
Table 9 shows the different approaches that the PRF and the ORF have developed
to monitor the quality of the profession across the countries participating in the
TEDS-M study. The darker shade indicates strong quality assurance procedures while
the lighter shade limited procedures. For the U.S. for instance there are limited
procedures for regulating entry into teacher education, including control over the
supply of teacher education students, the promotion of teaching as an attractive
career (as salaries in the U.S. are low in comparison with other professions, and
respect for teachers and working conditions leave much to be desired), and selection
standards for entry to teacher education (e.g., strong mathematics content knowl-
edge). The U.S. has moderate quality procedures regarding accreditation of teacher
education programmes, and entry to the teaching profession (Tatto et al. 2012).
Here again, there is variability in the field as concerns the monitoring of quality by
the profession. Weak quality assurance mechanisms by the PRF have allowed the ORF
and non-educationists to attack the profession and to establish all kinds of require-
ments to prove the viability of teacher education programmes (e.g., by collecting
data from the pupils of their graduates as per CAEP 2013). The value-added models
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 37

(VAMs) used by analysts, as they intend to inform policy (ORF), have in great part
contributed to the continued emphasis on pupil testing as a quality metric.

What are the most important challenges to the teaching profession and the
field of education as a discipline?
The previous pages have provided an overview of broad trends in the literature regarding the
degree to which teacher education can prepare professional teachers, and most support the
general belief that teacher education programmes seem to be failing to introduce teachers to
much needed professional knowledge. However, the data that emerged from the analysis of
the teacher education syllabi across institutions in the TEDS-M study reveals a more nuanced
situation as it shows the existence of a strong professional field in mathematics education.
Teacher educators have and continue to build the knowledge base of the profession and
have constructed programmes that cover the first five aspects of Gardner and Shulman’s
framework – I address the sixth aspect below. Thus, the TEDS-M curriculum analysis chal-
lenges prevailing views that disparage the integrity of the teacher education project.
The TEDS-M study, also uncovered variability in the extent to which this knowledge
base is considered as definitive and universal across programmes within and across
countries.
Although variability is expected and even helpful I argue that there are three
challenges that if addressed may help to reduce unhelpful variability in the offer
and disagreement in the field: (a) the production and use of educational research by
the profession; (b) ongoing and systematic evaluation research in teacher education
programmes; and (c) control over the oversight and monitoring of quality in practice
and professional education by the PRF in collaboration with the ORF.

The production and use of educational research by the profession to improve the
application of that knowledge to practice
Education research must continue to produce basic (scientific) knowledge (Shavelson and
Towne 2002), and knowledge that informs practice, that is, research that allows the
production of useable knowledge (Stokes 1997). In other words, research that is ‘problem
finding [. . .], which helps frame good research questions; problem-solving [. . .], which
helps illuminate educational problems; and translational [. . .], which transforms the find-
ings of research into tools that practitioners and policy makers need’ (Lagemann 2008,
424). I argue that a fourth kind is also needed and could be conceived as ‘back-
translational research’ where the purpose would be to explore the results of the transla-
tional work for the problems of practice and to provide feedback on the usefulness and
applicability of translational research.
Lagemann also argues for education research to be a distributed activity, where
education problems are explored from the framework of the disciplines in universities
as well as in schools of education. She suggests that a plurality of views would strengthen
the field. I agree but underline the need for a strong emphasis on collaboration across the
disciplines where the PRF must engage colleagues in education research, that is, on the
study of the ‘process of interaction by which individual potential (instincts, propensities,
38 M. T. TATTO

talents) is activated, shaped, or channelled and a change (an observable or consciously

felt difference) thereby produced in the self’ (Lagemann 1979, 6).
Purinton (2012, 362) is relevant here as he warns against the dominance of one
discipline over others in education: ‘[a]s the methods and capital of other fields, such as
economics, become more prized in education research circles, it is incumbent upon the
field to determine which research roads can be forged with a quintessentially instruction-
[education] focused agenda.’

Ongoing systematic evaluation research in teacher education programmes

The field has lacked (or failed to adopt) systematic evaluation research in teacher educa-
tion able to inform teacher educators of the extent to which the intended curriculum is
implemented and with what results. The TEDS-M study which collected data in 2008
marked the first time that teacher educators had undertaken a large-scale evaluation
research study of their teacher education programmes to test whether long-held causal
assumptions could be empirically challenged – and some were. The deep look at the
syllabi in these institutions by mathematicians, mathematics educators and pedagogy
educators served to develop a comprehensive definition of the mathematics education
curriculum while at the same time revealing unexpected variability in opportunities to
learn professional knowledge within and across countries. This is the only initiative of its
kind to date, but one that should be undertaken regularly as part of much needed self-
study by the profession.
Evaluation research in teacher education programmes should be a central activity by
the PRF community of practice as part of the cultivation of a culture of inquiry where
educators in the disciplines (e.g., mathematicians, historians, psychologists) teacher edu-
cators (in higher education and in schools), and future teachers engage in the constant
study of the task of learning to teach. For this to succeed it is essential for future teachers
to learn how to do evaluation research in education.

Control over the oversight and monitoring of quality in practice and professional
education
A key challenge for the profession resides with Garner and Shulman’s sixth category:
oversight and monitoring of quality in practice and professional education. Teacher
educators must develop their own systems to control the quality of those who enter
teacher education and the profession, and how programmes are accredited in collabora-
tion with the ORF.
The PRF should not remain silent as the ORF works with non-educationists to create
policies that have already had devastating consequences for the delicate ecological
balance of teaching and learning and the profession more generally (Ravitch 2007).
Analysis of administrative data using VAMs must stop being the authoritative input in
education policy making. There must be a concentrated effort by the PRF to collaborate
with the ORF in working together for the benefit of children and their teachers. At the core
of this effort is the development of a strong research base by the profession able to inform
policy and practice (as argued by the BERA Report, 2014; and earlier by Cochran-Smith &
Zeichner, 2005).
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 39

An often-cited example to emulate is that of Finland where the PRF and the ORF have
managed to develop a more coherent framework to support the profession and the
discipline of education more generally (Santti and Kauko 2019). In Finland the PRF has
control over who enters teacher education and the teaching profession, and both the PRF
and the ORF have been able to promote teaching as an attractive career. Teachers in
Finland have a master’s degree where they receive instruction in research methods (an
element that was found lacking in the TEDS-M countries curriculum) in addition to a deep
immersion in school settings and a research-based dissertation. Similar efforts are present
in other countries such as in Ireland (Ireland Teaching Council forthcoming).
In contrast in the U.S., and in England the ORF is very active in their attempt at
implementing accountability policies and regulations that have had the effect of displacing
professional communities whose key role is to develop and implement responsible policies
and strategies from within the profession. These policies generated from the ORF reduce
teacher and teacher educators input into what counts as the knowledge base for teaching,
and introduces significant political forces to the process of knowledge production.

Conclusion
This article has sought to address three key issues relevant to teaching as a profession:
definitional aspects, opportunities to learn in university-based teacher education, and
current challenges to the teaching profession and teacher education.
I have addressed key definitional aspects using as a point of departure the examination
of the status of the profession using Gardner & Shulman’s empirically grounded frame-
work. The current Covid-19 pandemic, however, invites a re-evaluation of such framework
concerning what counts as professionalism in teaching, and the role of university-based
teacher education. For instance, a more nuanced exploration of the opportunities that
teachers have to learn to create more equitable and inclusive classrooms using innovative
technologies including online learning has become an important priority for many com-
munities and has revealed important gaps in teachers’ preparation.
The cross-national examination of the opportunities to learn the knowledge consid-
ered needed to teach revealed important challenges for the profession as a whole and
teacher education in particular. While some variability in university-based teacher is to be
expected, it is concerning when such variability excludes important aspects of the knowl-
edge that is considered required, and deprives future teachers of important pedagogical
knowledge and the chance to be successful as they enter the profession. Within the
constraints and possibilities of university-based teacher education, educators must
develop a focused research agenda to explore how to create definitive knowledge that
can be used in teacher education programmes to elevate the professional quality of
future teachers including their opportunities to engage in research while preparing to
become teachers and once in their classrooms.
An important challenge for the profession then is the work that educationists working
together with others must do to strengthen and transform the teaching profession.
University-based teacher education is uniquely suited to provide teachers with the
body of knowledge that is essential to develop the needed professional expertise they
are called to enact daily across the world. Programmes must seek ways to consistently
provide teachers with the opportunities to learn the professional knowledge and skills
40 M. T. TATTO

that will allow them to be effective. The education community has the responsibility to
continue to produce scientific discipline-based research in education to explore how to
best prepare effective teachers and to continue to engage in research that produces
useable knowledge to inform inquiry-based policy and practice.

Notes
1. No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a re-authorisation of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965, was the main law for K–12 general education in the United States from
2002–2015. The law held schools accountable for how kids learned and achieved. The law
was controversial in part because it penalised schools that didn’t show improvement.
2. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) came to replace NCLB in 2016, and is the nation’s
main education law for all public schools. The law holds schools accountable for how
students learn and achieve.
3. Value-added models (VAMs) ‘are designed to measure how much value a teacher purportedly
adds to (or detracts from) students’ growth as evidenced on large-scale standardised
achievement tests over each school year’ (https://kappanonline.org/value-added-models-
what-the-experts-say/).
4. For an extensive description of the U.S. curriculum analysis see Tatto and Bankov (2018).

Acknowledgments
The TEDS-M Study was developed under the aegis of the International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The research reported in this article received support
from the U.S. National Science Foundation under awards number REC 0514431 and DRL-0910001
(Tatto, PI for both grants). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in
this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science
Foundation.

Disclosure statement
I have not known conflict of interest to disclose.

Notes on contributor
Maria Teresa Tatto is a Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation at Arizona
State University, and the Southwest Borderlands Professor of Comparative Education at the Mary
Lou Fulton Teachers College. Previously she was a professor at Michigan State University. She is a
former president of the Comparative and International Education Society. She is an Honorary
Research Fellow in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, England, and a
Fellow in the American Educational Research Association. Dr. Tatto studies the effects of educational
policy on school and teacher education systems.

ORCID
Maria Teresa Tatto http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4955-1420
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 41

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