Recent developments in teacher training and their consequences for the 'University Project' in education

• Published in: Oxford review of education Vol. 40; no. 4; pp. 466 - 481
• Main Author: Whitty, Geoff
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Routledge 01.01.2014; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Academies; autonomous schools; Autonomy; branding; Central government; Colleges and universities; Development; Education; Educational Change; Educational History; Educational Policy; Educational Sociology; Educational Trends; England; Faculty Development; Foreign Countries; Higher Education; Neoliberalism; Press; Professionalism; Role of Education; Schools; sociology of education; Subject; Teacher Education; Teacher training; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching (Occupation); United Kingdom; Universities; United Kingdom (England)
• ISSN: 0305-4985; 1465-3915
• DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2014.933007

This paper discusses one of Furlong's major areas of work, the theory and practice of teacher education. Taking up where our joint publication Teacher Education in Transition: Re-Forming Professionalism? (Open University Press 2000) left off, it examines how accelerated moves towards school-based teacher education, as well as increased school autonomy, are impacting upon notions of teacher professionalism and professional formation in England. It looks at how in this context a 'core' professionalism mandated by central government through its teaching standards is being supplemented or even replaced by a series of 'local' professionalisms and the 'branded' professionalisms of Teach First and Academy chains. The paper then considers the implications of these developments for the future of Education as a subject of study in universities and, in particular, for the vision set out in Furlong's recent book Education: an anatomy of the discipline (Routledge 2013).