Toward Convergence in Teacher Education? Program Coherence in Finland, Norway, Chile, Cuba, and the United States

• In Event: Unpacking the Conception of Coherence in Teacher Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Institutional theory distinguishes between divergence and convergence to describe change and developments in higher education. Divergence emphasizes differentiation and the role of local and national cultures; convergence underscores processes of harmonization and the tendency towards globalization, playing down the role of national culture. Teacher education and teaching is, however, by tradition viewed as national and regional, culturally embedded in national traditions and local ‘cultural scripts’ (Stiegler & Hiebert, 1999; LeTendre et al., 2003). Recent developments and restructuring efforts in teacher education, emphasizing coherence and shared visions of teaching as quality indicators of teacher education, challenge this statement as teacher education moves towards an international, and more convergent, research area (Zeichner, 2010; Cochran Smith & Villegas, 2015; Authors, 2015).
This paper will use redesigning efforts in teacher education in five different countries (Finland, Norway, Chile, Cuba and California, US) to examine features of program coherence. We are especially interested in potential divergences and convergences regarding the level of program coherence – across programs but also within programs.

The analyses build on program data from Finland, Norway, California, Chile and Cuba. For the first three we analyzed two programs in each country. For the latter two we investigated one program from Santiago and Havana. All programs are university-based, secondary teacher education programs. Analyses of the program-data (see Figure 1) include documents and administrative data providing information on admission requirements, required courses, course structure, the amount and structure of field placements and required curriculum and main assignments in the methods courses in Mathematics and Language Arts.

Findings suggest strong similarities across the programs in basic course structure, required readings and admission requirements. All programs are rather selective and are similar in student demographics, course structure and course composition (see Table 1). The composition of courses (e.g., content coverage, thematic structure and principles of progression) is strikingly similar – thus we might argue that there seems to be a shared understanding of key elements of coherent teacher education programs across these cases. This also goes for the required readings in the methods courses in Mathematics and Language Arts. In Mathematics, required readings represented a shared international canon of texts, but this was not the case in Language Arts.

The organization and amount of field placements vary considerably (Table 2) across these programs, with the Nordic programs at one end of the range (<500 hours of practice) and the Californian programs, and Havana, at the other (>700 hours of practice). Interval versus concurrent field-placement is another feature of variation, and our initial analyses suggest that programs with concurrent practice are related to high scores on program coherence as reported from candidate surveys in these programs.

These findings point to convergence in teacher education, and towards an increased shared international understanding of basic elements in structuring coherent teacher education programs. Coherence in alignment to practice is however, still a ‘black box’ calling for further investigation.

Authors

• Kirsti Klette, University of Oslo

• Inga Staal Jenset, University of Oslo

• Karen M. Hammerness, American Museum of Natural History