Keywords in Teacher Education Practice

Opens up the idea of ‘practice’ as a key concept, looking at how ideas circulate in teacher education and how certain models of ‘good’ teaching become normalized. Heated debates about teaching often occur around the word practice. When we consider practice as a keyword, it becomes clear that practice is about much more than what teachers do in the classroom. Discourses of practice are used to spread policy ideas, to claim expertise, to empower or disempower teachers, to discredit or support schools of education, and more. In this book, the authors demonstrate how impoverished notions of practice undermine teachers’ work. They ask: How can a historical understanding of practice inform the present, considering the political, social, and economic forces that shape decisions and trends? How can educators act to transform teacher education, centring complex notions of practice that honour teachers’ work? Demonstrating the import of these questions in our current moment, they offer pathways forward.