Teaching the World's Teachers

Lauren Lefty, James W. Fraser, Lauren Lefty, Gustavo Fischman, Paula Razquin, Maria Ines G.F. Marcondes de Souza, Silvana Mesquita, Eduard Vallory, Wei Liao, Yisu Zhou, Richard Andrews, Hannele Niemi, Jari M. Lavonen, Kwame Akyeampong, Arie Kizel, Lily Orland-Barak, Jason Loh, Guangwei Hu, Azeem Badroodien, Carol Anne, Lauren Lefty, James W. Fraser

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781421438306
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Examining teacher education in an international context, this book captures the diversity of the world's educators.

Many countries confront surprisingly similar challenges in preparing K–12 educators for success, while national contexts also make for surprising differences. In Teaching the World's Teachers, education historians Lauren Lefty and James W. Fraser and their contributors make a convincing case for approaching these shared challenges from a more global and historically minded perspective.

Written by education scholars from eleven different countries—Argentina, Brazil, Catalonia-Spain, China, England, Finland, Ghana, Israel, Singapore, South Africa, and the United States—this book provides histories of teacher education reforms between roughly 1980 and 2020. The authors show how international trends that emerged during this period collided with national and regional contexts to produce unique teacher education systems in different nations. While in some countries the embrace of markets and competition led to a deregulation of the teacher preparation field, in others teaching became a highly regulated and centralized affair. At the same time, ideas and structural models cross borders and education leaders borrow from each other while reshaping plans in each place.

Opening with a broad historical overview of global teacher education models beginning in the late eighteenth century, Teaching the World's Teachers argues that the field has long been characterized by cross-border connections—but shaped by geopolitical hierarchies of power. In an era when teacher quality is widely recognized as one of the most important factors in a child's education, this volume encourages dialogue among teacher educators and policymakers around the world. By understanding the context and contingency of where we have been, the authors hope that readers will walk away with a more empowered sense of where we are headed in the all-important task of teaching the world's teachers.

Contributors: Kwame Akyeampong, Richard Andrews, Azeem Badroodien, Maria Inês G. F. Marcondes de Souza, Gustavo E. Fischman, James W. Fraser, Guangwei Hu, Arie Kizel, Jari Lavonen, Lauren Lefty, Wei Liao, Jason Loh, Silvana Mesquita, Hannele Niemi, Lily Orland-Barak, Paula Razquin, Carol Anne Spreen, Eduard Vallory, Yisu Zhou

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface: Why Look at Teacher Preparation Globally?
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Teaching the World’s Teachers: A Long and Global History
• 1 Argentina: Continuities and Transformations of Argentina’s Teacher Education: Policies and Reforms since the Mid-Eighties
• 2 Brazil: Teacher Formation in Brazil: “Old” and “New” Approaches to Teacher Formation Given Today’s Challenges for the Teaching Profession
• 3 Catalonia-Spain: Preparing Teachers for the Schools We Have or for the Schools We Want?: Challenges and Changes in Catalonia (Spain)
• 4 China: Teacher Education Reform and National Development in China (1978–2017): Four Metaphors
• 5 England: Crisis and Opportunity in Teacher Preparation in England
• 6 Finland: Teacher Education in Finland: Persistent Efforts for High-Quality Teachers
• 7 Ghana: Transforming Teacher Preparation and Development in Ghana: Progress and Prospects
• 8 Israel: From Traditional to Dialogical-Reflective Teacher Training : The Case of Teacher Education in Israel
• 9 Singapore: Teacher Education for a Knowledge-Based Economy : The Singaporean Case
• 10 South Africa: Reforming South Africa’s Teaching : The Difficult Dilemmas of Teacher Education Policy Reform Post-1994
• 11 United States: Changing Paths and Enduring Debates in US American Teacher Education
• A Concluding Word
• Contributors
• Index