ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the marked differences between contemporary approaches to pedagogy in pre-service teacher education programmes in Denmark and Finland, and argues comparatively and historically for divergent paths in the field of pedagogy. What may be defined as ‘national educational schisms’ emerged during the nineteenth century between folk-oriented and academic-oriented educational thinkers and practitioners. Teacher education institutions in the early phase (1860–1970) were heavily influenced by the relative strengths of these schisms. This was evident in Denmark where the strong peasant society built its own ‘folk’ institutions. Conversely, in the Finnish case, the power of the urban academic elites in defining the national movement promoted the start of academisation of primary school teachers already at the end of the nineteenth century. These differing biases resulted in divergent institutionalisations in the 1970s. During the subsequent 50 years, Danish pedagogy has developed a dogmatic hermeneutical approach to pedagogical knowledge in contrast to the Finnish cumulative positivist one. These approaches are evident in the comparative data on current approaches to pedagogy and research-based knowledge.
