Chapter 45
Making Connections in the UK
and Australia—Research, Teacher
Education and Educational Improvement
Ian Menter
45.1 Introduction
In this chapter I seek to explore the relationships between teacher education,
research and educational improvement. My exploration is based on a deep com-
mitment to a research-based approach to teacher education, indeed on my com-
mitment to teaching as an enquiry-based profession and also to the improvement of
educational experiences for all learners. This is not therefore a dispassionate per-
spective. It is one based on many years working in schools and universities and
working with other teachers and researchers. However, even if it is not dispas-
sionate, I will nevertheless seek to provide the evidence to support the case I am
developing, in the true spirit of critical enquiry.
The other key point to be made by way of introduction is that while education
systems may still be largely based around nation states or states within nations,
there is nevertheless an increasingly global element in education policy processes
and to some extent that is also echoed in educational practices. Some of the most
visible aspects of these developments may be associated with the attempts at
international comparisons in educational achievement, such as PISA, TIMMS and
PIRLS. One of the most perceptive accounts of these developments has been
offered by Sahlberg ( 2011 ), who continues to be somewhat mystified by the success
of Finland in these league tables, but is able to offer some partial explanations
against the backdrop of his wonderfully suggestive acronym, the GERM. The
Global Education Reform Movement is the process which has led to the following
This chapter is based on a talk given at the inaugural conference of the Peter Underwood Centre
on Educational Underachievement at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, in June 2015.
I. Menter (&)
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
M.A. Peters et al. (eds.),A Companion to Research in Teacher Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4075-7_45
667