Searching high and searching low, searching east and searching west: looking for trust in teacher education

• Published in: Journal of education for teaching : JET Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 483 - 499
• Main Author: Townsend, Tony
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.11.2011; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Australia; Barriers; Canada; craft; Education; Educational Policy; Educators; Elementary Secondary Education; England; Foreign Countries; Globalization; Politicians; practitioner; profession; Professions; researcher; Schools; Scotland; Teacher Education; Teacher Educators; Teacher Improvement; Teachers; Teaching; Technological change; trust; Trust (Psychology); United Kingdom; United States; Canada; United Kingdom; United Kingdom (Scotland); Australia; United Kingdom (England); United States
• ISSN: 0260-7476; 1360-0540
• DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2011.611017

This paper considers what has been learned from reviewing the full set of papers in this special issue. It considers some of the major factors that have impacted on education and subsequently teacher education in recent times, namely rapid technological change and increasing globalisation and movement from one country to others, and then focuses on how standards, for schools, for the people in them and for teacher education, have been used to drive improvement in many parts of the world. Key issues that have emerged from this special issue are, first, whether teaching is a craft or a profession, which has implications on how teacher educators view themselves, as practitioners or researchers. Second, what is notable in a number of countries in this issue is the lack of trust being shown by politicians and communities to both teachers and teacher educators. This concluding paper considers why this is so and how it might be changed.