Teacher Education and Teacher Professionalism in England: some emerging issues

Abstract Changes in teacher education are part of a much broader change in the nature of educational policy‐making in England and Wales. Successive Conservative Governments have increasingly attempted to regulate the supply and differentiate the pay and conditions of the teaching force. In relation to teacher education this has involved a process of diversification of routes into teacher training and to Qualified Teacher Status. The aims, content, structure and processes of teacher education are being redefined and reconstituted as is its control and location. This reconstitution now seems to concern the very nature of professionalism itself. This paper examines some of the key issues involved in this attempt to redefine the nature of teacher professionalism and explains the agenda of a research project designed to explore its impact on conceptions of teacher professionalism within courses of teacher education.