Blurred discourses of professionalism in teacher education institutions

This article presents an analysis of how the term 'professionalism' is used and given different meanings across Norwegian teacher education institutions. The term is often encountered in education research and normative documents on education policy and teacher work. However, professionalism can be constructed with different meanings and must be put into specific local and historical contexts so that its complexity can be understood. Based on an analysis of programme webpages and PhD-level study programme documents from teacher education institutions in Norway, three different ways in which professionalism is given meaning crystallise: teacher professionalism is developed through the production and use of (1) research-based evidence, (2) practice-relevant research and (3) meta-knowledge on teacher practice. These discourses entail positions on teacher knowledge that can be described as instrumental, relational and critical, respectively. Moreover, while the former two discourses are mainly consensus orientated, the latter is more tension orientated. Such differences are important to discuss as ways of teaching presented to student teachers through teacher education and are important for their identity development and future teaching practices.