Su Zhen; Xing Ke-chao, Li Chun-sheng (1996)

An overview of the book:

Section I is composed of seven chapters on single country case studies of teacher education, whilst special thematic discussion topics on teacher education are classified into section II.

Chapters 1-7 respectively investigate historical development, organizational structure, administrative systems, pre-service sectors at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, attained professional standards and future trends of teacher education in the United States of America, United Kingdom, France, former West Germany, Japan, former Soviet Union and China.

Chapter 8 pinpoints developmental transformation in organizational structures of teacher education in a comparative perspective, articulates and evaluates three (directional, non-directional and miscellaneous) models of teacher education, and anticipates future trends. Chapter 9 focuses on the historical development of pre-service teacher education, changes in teachers’ social status and identifies individuality and commonality in the nourishment of pre-service teacher education in a cross-national perspective: age limits, curricular content and pedagogy, problems and reforming trends.

Chapter 10 stresses the importance of lifelong learning for in-service teachers’ professionalism,  its relationships with ongoing educational reforms and their development and most importantly, highlights the institutionalization, compatibility with pre-service sectors and extensibility of in-service teacher educational development after the Second World War in cross-national and international perspectives. Chapter eleven outlines the societal status and benefits of teachers at all levels of schooling in cross-national perspective, articulates causal relationships between variations in teachers’ societal status and development of teacher education, and anticipates future trends. Consequently, the book reaches several conclusions: teacher education has tremendous impacts on the growth of educational reforms and thereby deserves greater attention;  the development of teacher education is affected by a combination of social factors and needs appropriate policy-making and implementation.

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