ABSTRACT
Trogressiveness' was in the air, even if there was evidence that teachers in practice were constitutionally conservative and cautious of change. There is strong evidence of a general lengthening of courses for primary teachers, with their qualifications increasingly matching those of secondary colleagues. Whilst there were differences in quality of teacher training everywhere - most obviously determined by differences in length of pre-qualifying courses - there was a steady expansion of the numbers of student teachers. Throughout Europe, the early 1970s was a period marked by educational expansion in a context of political and financial stability and of public consensus concerning what the schools were delivering. Teachers and those ultimately responsible, teacher-trainers, were attacked from all sides, for a variety of reasons - sometimes urged to reinstate traditional teaching methods, which there is no strong evidence teachers ever abandoned sometimes pressed to be less conservative and to respond more rapidly to change.
