Section archive - Trends in Teacher Education

This article discusses how student identities are constituted through social categories and how this affects students’ educational trajectories. It demonstrates how dropping out is a long-term process involving social interactions between the students. It is based on a field study in which the author was enrolled as a student at the car mechanic program at a vocational education and training school. The various social categories emerge in contrast with each other and have fundamental influences in defining the students’ scope of action. The discussion calls for awareness of reproducing effects of taken-for-granted logics and discriminatory practices and for including identity-related perspectives on peer relations, when studying dropout.

This study presents an exploratory investigation of current preparation of preservice teachers related to response to intervention (RTI) in institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the Office of Special Education Program (OSEP) Regional Resource and Federal Centers (RRFCs) North Central Region and Pennsylvania. The authors found special education faculty indicating high agreement on many items related to preservice preparation to implement RTI.

This paper offers a critical review of the literature on 21st century knowledge frameworks, with a particular focus on what this means for teachers and teacher educators. The article identifies common themes and knowledge domains in 15 reports, books, and articles that describe the kinds of knowledge that researchers state are integral and important for success in the 21st century. The authors argue that seemingly disparate frameworks converge on three types of knowledge, as necessary for the 21st century: foundational, meta, and humanistic. They argue that the synthesis of these different frameworks suggests that nothing has changed, that this tripartite division between what we know, how we act on that knowledge, and what we value has always been important. This analysis suggests that, though the 21st century is different from previous times, it does not mean that our core roles have changed.

In this article, the author examines the challenges faced by American schooling and the reasons for persistent failure of American school reforms to achieve successful educational outcomes at scale. He concludes that many of the problems faced by American schools are derived from trying to solve a problem that requires professional skill and expertise by using bureaucratic levers of requirements and regulations. The author advances a sectoral perspective on education reform, exploring how this shift in thinking could help education stakeholders produce quality practice across the US.