Historicizing Teacher Research in Teacher Education: The Cases of the United States and Finland

• In Event: 25.083 - MTCC Roundtable Session Eight
  In Roundtable Session: 25.083-1 - Historicizing and Problematizing Research on Teacher Learning

Abstract

The paper explores the historically and culturally specific influences on current ways of thinking about teacher research. It analyzes the academic publications of the U.S. and Finland teacher education, from the 1950s to the 2010s, comparing how the notions of teacher research have played out differently. While the U.S. teacher education has sustained the social justice agenda with the scientific research methods (i.e., ethnographic methods for action research, evidence-based reforms), the German, Bildung-influenced tradition of Finnish education has offered the Finnish teacher significant measures of professional autonomy, including an understanding and appreciation of the individual teacher’s personality (i.e. teacher’s personal styles, theories, philosophies of teaching). The paper provides international and critical perspectives on assumptions about teacher learning and teacher research.

Authors

• Johanna Sitomaniemi-San, University of Oulu

• Sun Young Lee, Wichita State University