ABSTRACT
The theory of expansive learning put forward by Engeström (1987, 1999a, 2001a, 2007a) offers a systematic way of analysing disturbances caused by inner contradictions within activity systems, considered as the driving force for development of the systems. Contradiction analysis is used in this Icelandic case study to analyse the development of student teachers, the schools where they work and an online teacher education programme. The analysis reveals how student teachers and teacher educators develop their practices by dealing with contradictions. The method opens up an understanding of possibilities and constraints for development at individual and collective levels and uncovers motives that may direct possible future development of interacting activity systems like schools and teacher education. Activity theorists argue that a qualitatively better form of an activity always begins as an exception from the rule (Engeström 1999b; Ilyenkov 1982). The distance programme under study deviates from the conventional form of teacher education in Iceland. The inception of the programme in 1993 is analysed before turning to the situation in 2003-2006 in order elicit possibilities for school development and the development of teacher education. The affordances for both student teachers and schools of having simultaneous access to the activity of the teacher education programme and the development of practice in the schools are explained. This Icelandic interplay between schools and teacher education sheds light on the issue of partnerships between schools and higher education, a concern in developing teacher education (Darling-Hammond 2005; Edwards and Mutton 2007; Furlong et al. 2000; Hallinan and Khmelkov 2001).
