ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book has resulted from the seventh Rutgers Invitational Symposium on Education, held in November 1993, which was designed to stimulate interest in teacher education as a global issue. The primary purpose of the symposium was to offer an international forum to explore salient problems in teacher education in industrialized nations. The book examines reform-related issues in teacher education in six nations: Britain, Canada, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, and the United States, and Western Europe. Until recently, teacher education has hardly been considered a cross-national interest except in such limited circles as comparative education groups. Debates on issues in teacher education and the professionalization and professionalism of teaching have been largely confined within national boundaries as unique problems impervious to international examination. Education reform issues in industrialized nations are embedded in their unique historical, political, economic, and cultural contexts.
