THE NATION STRIKES BACK: RECENT INFLUENCES ON TEACHER EDUCATION IN EUROPE

Abstract

This paper revisits a previous paper, published in 2001, which focused on five European trends in teacher education: professionalism, research, feminisation, traditions and, and globalisation. The original paper proposed that ‘Anglophone’ (equated with neo-liberalism) and ‘European’ (equated with social democracy) teacher education policies contain di#erent emphases and priorities, even if they are shaped also by specific national cultures and histories. This paper rea$rms the influence of neo-liberalism and social democracy on teacher education and also draws attention to two further issues: the di$culties of traditional teacher education when faced with increased cultural diversity and the faltering impact of globalisation, as the nation state reasserts its goal of re-creating, consolidating and transmitting national culture and norms. It was argued in an earlier paper that few people appreciate the size of the task of educating Europe’s teaching force: and even fewer are interested in teacher education in countries other than their own (Weiner, 2002). Despite exhortations to the contrary from the European Union (EU) and other supra-national bodies, we remain parochial when it comes to the education of our teachers. This was not always so, as Nisbet shows in his review of the cross-fertilisation of educational ideas across European countries pre-World War II (Nisbet, 2002). Thus, when we consider how di#erent countries have responded to the various impacts of global, economic and cultural change on education in recent years, we see di#erence rather than harmonisation. For example, Britain responded in the 1990s by creating a crisis of confidence in teachers and teacher education, followed by draconian measures to limit the autonomy of teaching professionals, impose greater conformity and regulation, and introduce checks and economic penalties in the case of non- compliance (Mahony and Hextall, 2000;