ABSTRACT
To give a first impression of the current situation of teacher education and training (TE) in Europe, let me introduce the article on Teacher Education in Europe’ by two quotations from well-known experts in the field and by a comment on the importance of teacher education frequently made by experts as well as (education) politicians:
The teacher education systems are almost all undergoing change of some kind or other at this time, undirected in any international sense, but with some identifiably common trends emerging. It is a period of great fluidity, with many difficulties for those engaged in the work, but interesting too, and the factors responsible for change are tending to operate [in] similar, if not exactly the same directions. (Bone, 1992, p. 61)
This special issue of the European Journal of Education is concerned with a component of educational systems [teacher education] that, almost everywhere in Europe, is at the centre of controversy and uncertainty. (Eggleston, 1991, p. 195)
Publications dealing with TE in Europe (e.g. Lundgren, 1986; Neave, 1992; Vonk, 1992) as well as speeches not only by education politicians (e.g. Mayor, 1992; Ritzen, 1992) frequently start by emphasising the prominent role teachers and TE ought to play in our society and its development. But in most European countries the diverse and complex field of TE seems to be full of contradictions, 15contradictions, tensions and paradoxes (cf. Judge, 1990; Popkewitz, 1993a), and one of them lies in the fact that the intentions expressed are not always succeeded by appropriate action. This applies to policies concerning TE as well as to TE itself. Although there is wide-spread agreement that improvements of TE in all its subsystems (initial teacher education, induction, in-service education) are imperative (cf. Karagözoǧlu, 1993; OECD/CERI, 1990, 1992), a host of both internal and external barriers (cf. Portmann, 1993) seems to hamper necessary innovations and reforms. Thus TE cannot always fulfil the prominent role postulated.
