49.2 Selected Relevant Previous Research
Early in 2015, Marilyn Cochran-Smith and colleagues mapped the landscape of
research on teacher education by reviewing more than 1500 studies published
between 2000 and 2012 and from diverse parts of the world (Cochran-Smith and
Villegas 2015 ; Cochran-Smith et al. 2015 ). From a position where research on
teacher education is seen as a “Historically Situated Social Practice”
(Cochran-Smith and Villegas 2015 , p. 7) they identify three major research pro-
grammes: (1) Research on teacher preparation and accountability, effectiveness and
policies; (2) Research on preparation for the knowledge society; and (3) Research
on teacher preparation for diversity and equity. These are clusters with numerous
sub-categories involved. On the whole, the authorsfind“that sociocultural per-
spectives have been widely taken up by teacher education researchers”
(Cochran-Smith et al. 2015 , p. 113), and in particular concerning category 2. We
argue that the present chapter primarily belongs in the second category, not least
because this category has strong links to the learning sciences and changing con-
ceptions of how people learn and construct new knowledge, but that the other two
are not excluded.
However, the articles referred to above do not review the various methodological
approaches in the studies (although they offer a brief historical overview) but state
that their review“is deliberately inclusive of multiple—sometimes competing—
research approaches and agendas”, adding up to“a‘sprawling’field of research”
(ibid., p. 8). This lack of methodological consensus is in itself interesting as it
indicates a potentially productive diversity as well as potentially new spaces for
methodological approaches, which is where the present chapter aims to make a
contribution. Still, it is relevant to note that as for the second category on research
on teacher preparation for the knowledge society, the authors identify the following
six methodological clusters (p. 13):
- Preparing teachers to teach science subject matter
- The influence of coursework on learning to teach
- The influence offieldwork on learning to teach
- Content, structures and pedagogy of teacher preparation for the knowledge
society - Teacher educators as teachers and learners
- Teacher preparation and learning to teach over time
At the end of the second article, Cochran-Smith et al. conclude by listing their
findings. Of particular interest to the present study is the need for“studies that
investigated how preparation influenced the candidates’practice”, and that“few
studies connected aspects of teacher preparation/certification to students’learning”
(ibid., p. 117). The authors point to“research questions developed jointly by school
and university”as a way of establishing or strengthening such connections. The
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