ABSTRACT
Teacher education programmes are perceived to have changed very little in recent decades in spite of increased research and scholarship on the knowledge base of teacher education and widespread reforms within the compulsory education sector (Fullan, 1982; Goodlad, 1999; Sarason, 1993). The complexities, ambiguities and uncertainties of teachers’ work and of learning to teach are being recognised in repeated calls for reform of the ways in which teachers are prepared (Britzman, 1991; Bullough and Gitlin, 1995; Goodlad, 1991, 1994; Korthagen and Kessels, 1999; Loughran, Brown, and Doeke, 2001; Russell and McPherson, 2001; Sarason, 1993). The curriculum of teacher education programmes has been described as: fragmented and lacking in continuity (Ben- Peretz, 1995; Bullough and Gitlin, 1995; Levin, 1995); curriculum focused (Shulman, 1987); and contributing to the dichotomy of theory and practice (Ethell, 1997). Teacher education has been criticised for dismissing too easily the voices of student teachers (Korthagen, 2001; Russell, 2001). Increased external quality assurance requirements and repeated calls for internal and external accountability protocols reflect a “ reductionist approach to teacher education that suggests new teachers should simply focus on a repertoire of basic teaching skills undergirded by a one-dimensional notion of classroom pedagogy” (Vavrus, 2001). This reinforces technicist constructions of teaching and of learning to teach that underpin recent school and educational reforms where education is equated with training.
