The Transformative Potential of Doctoral Networks in Teacher Education: A European Perspective

Abstract

Almost 20 years after the launching of the Lisbon Strategy and the Bologna Declaration, teacher education remains an area embedded in national histories and conditions, although some common trends can be identified as the result of a broader Europeanisation process. Against this background, the European Doctorate in Teacher Education (EDiTE) was developed as a project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to raise awareness of what constitutes the “Europeanness” of teacher education and what it means to be a “European teacher”. This chapter aims to explore the impact of EDiTE, drawing on the authors’ experiences and project-related documents. It employs a framework for differentiating change processes of social systems and describes changes at the institutional level of participating universities and at the individual and professional levels of participants. Findings indicate that transnational doctoral networks place high demands on all participants due to their complex embedding in the different institutional contexts. The added value from the intercultural experience can increase the quality of teacher education in the future to a higher level if there is the appropriate commitment.