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The Importance of Context: Teacher Education Policy in England and France Compared

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The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research

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Abstract

This chapter discusses how England and France are on contrasting paths in teacher education. The paths are driven by reforms and policies by their respective central governments, and have had ramifications for how the teacher, through their prescribed education, is conceptualized in the two countries over time. In England, changes since the 1980s till today have been addressed as a turn to the practical as school-based training has come to dominate teacher education. Meanwhile, the official image of the ideal teacher in England has arguably gone from “scholar” to “self-improving craftsperson.” In France, changes in the same time period are a from a teachers’ college model centered on practical pedagogy for the primary teacher and a university focused subject mastery model for the secondary teacher toward a common model of university-based teacher education, with a broad emphasis on theory of learning, practical experience, and subject knowledge for all teachers. The conceptual changes in France are centered on harmonization between the primary and secondary teachers toward a universalist teacher who is obliged to master all facets of the modernizing profession. This text discusses these changes in relation to three different contexts of policy: influence, text production, and practice.

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Acknowledgments

The project leading to this article has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 714641).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GIRSEF, Institute for the Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies, University of Louvain, Louvain la Neuve, Belgium

    Jo B. Helgetun

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  1. Jo B. Helgetun
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Correspondence to Jo B. Helgetun .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK

    Ian Menter

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  1. Division of Leadership and Innovation, Mary Low Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Maria Teresa Tatto

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Helgetun, J.B. (2023). The Importance of Context: Teacher Education Policy in England and France Compared. In: Menter, I. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16193-3_75

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