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Exploring the Interaction of Global and Local in Teacher Education: Circulating Notions of What Preparing a Good Teacher Entails

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Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century

Part of the book series: New Frontiers of Educational Research ((NFER))

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the current moment of global discourse and its challenges for teacher education. I begin by making the case that, at an ideational level, there is indeed a global conversation of teacher education, one supported by cross-national studies, the role of national scholars and policymakers, and the emergence of global consulting (perhaps a new player in a new role). I then examine, through analysis of curriculum and teacher education student learning, how the practices of teacher education, when viewed comparatively, suggest a far more local, or regional, conversation. Finally, I consider the role of research in supporting what I see as an interaction of global and local discourses. Throughout, I am drawing on ideas of externalization (Schriewer 2000; Steiner-Khamsi 2004) and an understanding of teacher education as existing in both discursive and structural levels.

I thank Helen Aydarova, Brian DeLany, Kongji Qin, and Takayo Ogisu for their help in gathering materials, exploring the patterns discussed here, and reading drafts of this paper. Thanks go to Shi Jinghuan for thoughtful comments when the paper was presented at the First Global Teacher Education Summit, Beijing Normal University, Oct. 29, 2011. All problems with the argument are, of course, mine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this paper, I use the term “local” in large part to contrast with the term “global”. It is beyond the scope of this paper to interrogate the important complications and complexities of what constitutes “local”. Here, I use it to refer to national or sub-national policies, demographic and economic conditions, social expectations, cultural assumptions and educational systems or traditions.

  2. 2.

    See as examples: Department for Education (UK) (2010); Ministry of Education (2010); Department of Basic Education (South Africa) (2011); http://www.oecd.org/document/4/0,3746,en_2649_39263231_41829700_1_1_1_1,00.html; Caldwell 2007; Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Education 2010; American Association of School Administrators (2011), http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Newsroom/AFT-AASA-Framework-Prologue-042311.pdf.

  3. 3.

    See www.info.gov.za/speech/DynamicAction?pageid=461&sid=17598&tid=31552 for details.

  4. 4.

    See http://www.bahamasemployers.org/documents/coalitionforeducation/0807educationpolicystudy.pdf for the Bahamian example.

  5. 5.

    One notes a parallel to the business advice that the same McKinsey company gave to Enron about “get the brightest into the room”. See Gladwell (2002) for more.

  6. 6.

    Our study considered 28 US and 21 South Korean institutions that reflected a purposive sample of nationally accredited mathematics teacher education programs from each country that reflected variations in institutional prestige and geographic location. To understand formal expectations and educational aims, we analyzed such documents as the teacher education program or department handbook and website, especially the introductions that provide overviews of goals and orientations. For more on the thinking behind this analysis as well as the sample, see Kim et al. 2011.

  7. 7.

    These were content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, general knowledge, and field experience. For more details, see Kim et al. 2011, p. 54.

  8. 8.

    “In terms of credit requirements, 45 % of credits are allocated to CK courses in South Korea, which is the largest proportion of the five types of courses in the country. In the United States, however, the credit requirement for CK courses is only 26 %, which is lower than the credit requirement for GK courses by 13 %” (Kim et al. 2011).

  9. 9.

    Even though there was a larger standard deviation among U.S. programs than among South Korean ones in our data, the difference in curricular emphasis given to field-based experiences between the two countries is statistically significant.

  10. 10.

    In the planning phase of MT21, colleagues from Italy and the UK also participated. Here and elsewhere in the paper, references to practices in these two settings come from personal communications during this planning phase of MT21 work.

  11. 11.

    See Schmidt et al. 2011, p. 100f for discussion of this.

  12. 12.

    Certainly some U.S. researchers and teacher education practitioners, like many European counterparts, conceptualize mathematic pedagogy as a scholarly area of inquiry and see knowledge of it as including theorized understandings. Shulman (1987) and others identify pedagogical content knowledge as a knowledge which includes theoretical understandings about the teaching of subject matter. I suggest that the presence of the U.S. discourse on pedagogical content knowledge, which entered the U.S. field only 20 years ago, in fact reflects the persistence of a longstanding approach which deems the knowledge of subject teaching to be primarily a practically-oriented one. For more, see Bloemeke and Paine 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Lynn Paine

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  1. Lynn Paine
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Correspondence to Lynn Paine .

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  1. Center for Teacher Education Research, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People's Republic of China

    Xudong Zhu

  2. College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Kenneth Zeichner

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Paine, L. (2013). Exploring the Interaction of Global and Local in Teacher Education: Circulating Notions of What Preparing a Good Teacher Entails. In: Zhu, X., Zeichner, K. (eds) Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century. New Frontiers of Educational Research. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36970-4_8

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