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Globalization, Teachers, and Teacher Education: Theories, Themes, and Methodologies

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The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research

Abstract

This chapter serves as an introduction to the section “Globalization and Teacher Education” in The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research. The aim of the chapter, and the Handbook section overall, is to demonstrate the pertinence of the concept of globalization in making sense of contemporary developments in teacher education and thereby give momentum to new thinking and research. Drawing especially on the scholarship of Manfred Steger and Paul James, the chapter associates globalization with a dynamic of material “time-space compression” of cultural, economic, and political processes as well as subjective formations of global consciousness, which together destabilize the meanings and practices of modern linear time, the territorial nation-state, and individualized embodiment. The chapter first introduces the concept of globalization and the most influential theories in studies of globalization, education, and teachers, before mapping the main themes in the so far limited amount of scholarship about globalization and teacher education. Subsequently, the chapter introduces the Handbook section and demonstrates that the chapters included combine theories and concepts in ways that allow for taking into account the complex interplay between material and ideational factors in globalizing processes, together supporting notions of globalization as associated with hybridization and vernacularization. Finally, the chapter reflects on research agendas and the need for moving beyond methodological nationalism as well as methodological globalism in the study of teacher education and globalization.

This chapter is based on research undertaken during the TEACHERSCAREERS project. The project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement N° 714641).

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  1. Taube Centre for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

    Tore Bernt Sorensen

  2. Groupe interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur la Socialisation, l’Education et la Formation (GIRSEF), UC Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Tore Bernt Sorensen

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  1. Taube Centre for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

    Tore Sorensen

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Sorensen, T.B. (2022). Globalization, Teachers, and Teacher Education: Theories, Themes, and Methodologies. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59533-3_73-1

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