Section archive - Trends in Teacher Education

The prime focus of the article is on presenting changes in teacher education from 1974 to the present day, against the backdrop of key political and social forces. It reviews the long attempt to transform teacher education in Thailand. The author concludes that at present, Teaching and Teacher Certificates, together with their respective approval processes, have been operated under the Teacher Council of Thailand (TCT)’s close supervision throughout Thailand. The author argues that to be effective as a Thai teacher, one must not only yield uncritically to TCT’s standards, but must also be able to engage wholeheartedly in the field research that relates their knowledge on pedagogic principles to the understanding of Thai education and social issues.

This paper seeks to analyse some key features of contemporary teacher professional learning policies in terms of the underpinning purposes of education, in an attempt to make more explicit the purposes and potential implications of particular policy choices. The analysis draws on literature related to the fundamental purposes of school education, highlighting three broad, but distinct categories of “purpose”: the socialisation function; the development of human capital; and “subjectification” which focuses on individual creativity.

The goal of this study was to describe the extent to which early childhood teacher educators are informed about, engage in, value, teach about, and collaborate with others in teacher research. This study focused on a specific teacher educator group, early childhood teacher educators and their own teacher research and what they say about the importance of teacher research in improving teacher education programs. The findings indicated that teacher educators are informed about teacher research, teach and model it for their students, and collaborate with others in doing it. They share their results in presentations and publications that contribute to the knowledge base in the field.

This article discusses how student identities are constituted through social categories and how this affects students’ educational trajectories. It demonstrates how dropping out is a long-term process involving social interactions between the students. It is based on a field study in which the author was enrolled as a student at the car mechanic program at a vocational education and training school. The various social categories emerge in contrast with each other and have fundamental influences in defining the students’ scope of action. The discussion calls for awareness of reproducing effects of taken-for-granted logics and discriminatory practices and for including identity-related perspectives on peer relations, when studying dropout.