ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to examine the different ways that Sweden, Germany, and England have reformed their teacher education systems. All countries have experienced similar challenges in the form of a new and changed international environment of globalisation, technological innovation, and intense economic competition. Human capital is seen as crucial to the countries’ ability to compete in this new ‘knowledge economy’, and hence higher levels of academic achievement have been expected from their education systems, including the training of teachers. However, the three countries have responded to these pressures to reshape their teacher education systems in different ways. This chapter probes into these differences, especially in regard to how these countries have sought to rebalance the role and weighting of theory and practice, and the assessment of student teachers’ classroom practice using rubrics of standards.
