Europeanisation in Teacher Education

A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Education Policies and Practices

Vasileios Symeonidis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367856267
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000260120
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

This book explores the phenomenon and process of Europeanisation in the field of teacher education. Drawing on comparative case studies in Austria, Greece and Hungary, it examines empirical data and analyses key themes around the continuum of teacher education, the development of teacher competence frameworks, and the support to teacher educators.

The book is the first of its kind to systematically research the landscape of European teacher education, exploring the interactions between national and European influences in the trajectory of teacher education policy and practice. Chapters offer an original and in-depth understanding of European influences that draw on evidence from policy documents and interviews with relevant stakeholders. It argues that teacher education systems are being Europeanised, although at different speeds and directions for each country. Factors such as the socio-political and economic contexts, historical traits and policy actors' preferences at both national and institutional levels determine the translation process.

This book will be of great interest for academics, educational researchers, practitioners and policymakers in Europe and beyond, informing wider discussions about the emerging European context in teacher education, education policy and what it means to be a European teacher.

1Introduction

Exploring Europeanisation in the trajectory of teacher education policies and practices

In an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, education systems both within Europe and in the global knowledge society are confronted with new challenges posed by globalisation and rising economic competition. Social justice, equity, sustainable development, and technological advancements are some of the challenges faced by today's schools in a world that is changing at a rapid pace. Since the 1990s, education systems have been undergoing extensive reforms striving for a constant change and improvement in the quest for “modernisation”. Similar education reforms are being applied around the world in countries that are highly diverse in cultural and economic terms, giving rise to what some researchers define as “global education policies” (Verger, Novelli & Kosar-Altinyelken, 2012, p. 3), shaped by the interplay between transnational and national policy-level processes.

A pivotal role in this globalised context is undertaken by international organisations and supranational entities, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), and the European Union (EU), which influence the education reforms worldwide. These international and interrelated actors have legitimised their participation in education governance over the past two decades by providing expert-based knowledge to nations that seek to become strong performers in the knowledge economy through education (Grek, 2010; Grek & Lawn, 2009). The results of large-scale international assessments, such as the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), have exerted significant pressure to policy-makers to improve student learning outcomes and the performance of their schools. This need for reforming schooling has subsequently led many governments worldwide to rethink the value of teacher education, which is currently considered a policy lever for improving the school and student performance (Kosnik, Beck & Goodwin, 2016; Murray, Swennen & Kosnik, 2019).

The resurgence of interest in teachers and teacher education, which could be argued is long overdue (Tatto, 2007), can be explained by research evidence suggesting that the quality and effectiveness of education depends on the quality of the teacher labour force (Barber & Mourshed, 2007; Hattie, 2009; OECD, 2005). Other reasons have to do with changes related to teacher shortages and the composition of the learning population, as well as a growing amount of knowledge produced with regard to human learning and the nature of professional knowledge (EDiTE, 2014). Governments are thus increasingly reforming their teacher education systems so that the ways in which the teacher knowledge, practices, and identities are currently understood and enacted by education professionals have considerably changed (Murray, Swennen & Kosnik, 2019). Influenced by the agenda of international organisations, this global reform wave has led to the restructuring of the educational profession towards instrumental and managerial practices (Normand et al., 2018). Unlike teacher education reforms in the past, recent changes that occur under the pressures of globalisation reveal a systematic politicisation of teacher education across developing and developed countries (Trippestad, Swennen & Werler, 2017). Governments appear to have growing ambitions to monitor and control teacher education, installing accountability measures and standardisation mechanisms (Kosnik, Beck & Goodwin, 2016; Tatto & Menter, 2019; Trippestad, Swennen & Werler, 2017).

In Europe, the need to reform teacher education is also promoted by policy initiatives undertaken by the EU under the objectives of a knowledge society (Domović & Čuk, 2014) and human capital development (Moutsios, 2007). The shift towards a knowledge-based economy in the late 1990s and the goal of achieving a European Higher Education Area, declared by the Bologna process in 1999, resulted in outcome-oriented governance of education, which emphasised lifelong learning as a goal for the individual and as a synonym for Europeanisation in the 21st century (Grek & Lawn, 2009). The launch of the EU's Lisbon Strategy in 2000 triggered an accelerating process of Europeanisation of national policies related to teachers and teacher education (EDiTE, 2014), so that researchers are increasingly talking about a “European teacher education policy community” (Hudson & Zgaga, 2008), a “European Teacher Education Area” (Gassner, Kerger & Schratz, 2010) and the “European teacher” (Schratz, 2014; Simões, Lourenço & Costa, 2018). Although teacher education systems in Europe are firmly rooted in national histories and conditions (Kotthoff & Denk, 2007), long-standing traditions, and political culture (Louis & van Velzen, 2012), there are a number of convergences witnessed across countries.

Teacher education in Europe has been largely “universitised” (Zgaga, 2013), with most teacher education systems having adapted to the Bologna cycles of bachelor and master degrees. Many countries have also introduced professional competence frameworks that describe expectations for teacher quality (European Commission, 2018; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2018), while the learning outcomes approach has found widespread usage in the curricula of teacher education institutions (Cedefop, 2016; Halász, 2017). Other convergences among European countries relate to the selection and retention of teachers, the need for improvement of the induction and support to beginning teachers, as well as the further professionalisation of teaching through quality assurance mechanisms (Vidović & Domović, 2013). However, a common conclusion of the studies discussed earlier is that the implementation of teacher education reforms and the usage of the newly introduced policies have varied considerably in different countries, even if the outcomes appear to be similar.

Despite the initiatives and policies provided by international organisations and national governments, changes on teacher education are rarely taking place without complex professional and social negotiations, which can lead to meaningful differences at local and national levels (Murray, Swennen & Kosnik, 2019). A crucial reason for this development lies in the fact that transnational policy actors rarely address the national educational contexts, the history, the ethos, and the unique characteristics of national systems (Devos et al., 2012; Tatto, 2011; Weidman, Jacob & Casebeer, 2014). Considering the context and culture of teacher education systems is thus necessary for understanding the “collaborative construction of policy knowledge” (Tatto, 2011, p. 510), a notion that moves beyond the idea of simply borrowing policies. European teacher education practices can be better understood as “glocal” phenomena developed out of the tensions between global, European and local priorities (Caena, 2014). Against this background, the following questions can arguably rise: How do European and local priorities interact in reforming teacher education? What is the role of the EU in this process? To what extent does Europeanisation contribute to reshaping the teaching profession?

Drawing and expanding on the findings of a PhD conducted within the framework of the European Doctorate in Teacher Education (EDiTE), this book envisages to explore the interactions between national and European influences in the trajectory of teacher education policy and practice. The term “European” refers, hereby, to the policies and practices developed within the framework of the EU, as well as to the policy initiatives related to the European continent as a whole. For example, the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 was developed within the institutions of the EU, while the Bologna process in 1999 was initiated by European countries aiming to create a common European Higher Education Area.

Specifically, the book contributes to the study of Europeanisation in the field of teacher education by analysing how and to what extent domestic teacher education policies and practices have been influenced by European policy developments. In doing so, the book offers critical reflections on the mechanisms and processes through which a European teacher education landscape is being constituted, as well as empirical data about the teacher education systems of Austria, Greece, and Hungary, three case studies selected to illustrate the manifestations of Europeanisation. The concept of teacher education is examined more broadly encompassing the whole continuum of teacher professionalisation, that is, initial teacher education (ITE), teacher induction, and continuing professional development (CPD).

This chapter will provide a rationale for the study and introduce the reader to the book's theoretical and methodological underpinnings. After an initial discussion of the study's relevance and research questions, there will be a conceptual clarification of the term Europeanisation drawing on the literature of European integration theories. Following that, the chapter discusses the influence of Europe on national education systems and provides a conceptual framework for analysing policy change. The next part of the chapter turns specifically to teacher education, conceptualising it as a policy ecosystem, shaped by the dynamics of Europeanisation. Afterwards, the comparative case study approach is introduced as an appropriate research design to study Europeanisation across the multiple contexts of the teacher education ecosystem. Some main information about data collection and data analysis methods are also hereby presented. Finally, the chapter closes by referring to the structure of the book.

The study of Europeanisation in teacher education

Europeanisation is a central theme of numerous studies in the social sciences, which tend to examine the impact of European integration on domestic policies. In the broader field of education, for example, there are several studies examining the impact of Europeanisation on vocational education and training institutions (Ante, 2016; Trampusch, 2009). Many studies also look at the Europeanisation of higher education, analysing the impact of the Bologna process (Witte, 2006), the spreading of market mechanisms (Dakowska, 2015; Zmas, 2014), or the permeability between vocational education and training and higher education (Bernhard, 2017). Landri (2018) also researches the digital governance of education within the framework of Europeanisation, exploring how digital technologies contribute to the creation and regulation of the European education arena. In one way or another, all these studies conceptualise Europeanisation as a cause for institutional change.

Despite the growing significance of teacher education as an academic field that influences student learning, there are currently hardly any studies exploring Europeanisation in this field. Most relevant studies focus on the European dimension of teacher education (Caena, 2014; Sayer, 2006; Valenčič Zuljan & Vogrinc, 2011; Zgaga, 2008) exploring mainly European values in ITE curricula, the internationalisation of teacher education and teacher mobility. There have also been efforts of European teacher education policy networks to examine how certain policies are recontextualised in different countries (see Buchberger et al., 2000; Hudson & Zgaga, 2008; Hudson, 2017; Gassner, Kerger & Schratz, 2010). However, a comprehensive study of the Europeanisation process in teacher education is missing and this is one research gap that this book aims to narrow down. The lack of relevant studies could perhaps be explained by the argument that the Europeanisation of teacher education seems to be a “much more complex and complicated process than Europeanisation and internationalisation in higher education in general” (Zgaga, 2008, p. 18).

Although European teacher education has been largely universitised since the launch of the Bologna process in 1999, teacher education systems still try to “sail in the heavy seas of higher education” balancing between “academic” and “professional” higher education (Zgaga, 2013, p. 347). The upgrade of teacher education as an independent study programme in higher education happened in the last 30 years following the massification of higher education and despite resistance from universities, but it should not be understood as an irreversible process, since integration within the higher education logic is still an ongoing issue. Another challenge in studying the process of Europeanisation in teacher education might be the fact that teacher education is increasingly perceived as a continuum of teachers' professional development by both research (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Roberts-Hull, Jensen & Cooper, 2015; Tatto, 2008) and policy (European Commission, 2012, 2015). Especially in Europe, this idea is in line with the lifelong learning agenda of the EU's education and training programmes and thus, researching European teacher education would largely imply the need to consider developments in both higher and school education, assuming that ITE belongs to higher education, while induction and CPD relate to school and teacher policies. In this sense, one novelty of this book is the attempt to research a largely unexplored topic considering the whole spectrum of teachers' professional development, namely ITE, induction and CPD, contributing to higher education and teacher policy research.

A growing number of studies also emphasises the need for more research on teacher education in the context of international policy flows arguing that discussions on teaching are no longer solely local or national ones (Nordin & Sundberg, 2014; Paine, Blömeke & Aydarova, 2016; Tatto, 2007). According to Paine, Blömeke and Aydarova (2016, p. 717): “How teaching is defined, studied, and managed today is influenced by contexts beyond a local community or a national policy system; teaching today is informed by the discourses and actions of transnational, international, and global actors”. Similarly, Carvalho and Normand (2018, p. 4) argue about the need to analyse changes that are reshaping the educational professions by taking into account the regulatory interventions of international organisations. Researchers' perceptions and interpretations of teaching are influenced by the heightened connections of globalisation which is seen as a “much more multifaceted dynamic, on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The emerging European context of teacher education
• 3 Teacher education policy and practice in Austria
• 4 Teacher education policy and practice in Greece
• 5 Teacher education policy and practice in Hungary
• 6 Comparing teacher education policies and practices in context
• Index