ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the ideological relationship between central government and the curriculum of training is a complex one in which patterns of power and control evolve over time. It also suggests that even if the ideological principles of the government do become established as the sub-text of the training programme that this is not always entirely a direct and outright consequence of state intervention, nor is the long term legitimation or security of tenure of ideological representation guaranteed. The principal responsibility for shaping such relationships belongs to teachers. To acknowledge that the state may seek to exert influence on society through the curriculum of teacher education is not to suggest either that it consistently attempts to do so or that when it does establish a degree of control that it meets with no resistance: nor that all that happens within teacher education contributes to ideological innovation or maintenance.
