Structures and relations in developing knowledge for the teaching profession are complex and manifold, and this complexity makes the construction of knowledge for the teaching profession theoretically challenging to study. In this section, I will prepare the ground for the analytical framework by outlining possible relations and structures involved in developing knowledge for the teaching profession.
Policy processes for teacher education are initiated by the state in the two countries.
Who the state decides to involve, how such processes are steered, and by what kind of ‘rules’ such processes are conducted varies from country to country. Policy making in teacher education sets the agenda for who is allowed to shape the content of teacher education policy, what kinds of experts are consulted, and what kinds of policies and educational ideologies are given space. How policy is developed and formulated, also, to some extent at least, regulates the degree of professional autonomy in teacher education institutions. Policy documents can vary from loose frames to prescriptive and detailed descriptions of program structure and content. Policy making on teacher education (through the structure, actors, and rules in the process) implies taking a position on what counts as important knowledge for teachers and what is the best way of organizing it. In both cases, curricula content at the institutional level
in the two cases is developed in close congruence with whatever policies for teacher education initiate. Curricula documents initiate the structures and organization of teacher education programs, while they also describe the structure and organization of what is considered important knowledge for future teachers. Implicit in such texts is an image of what a knowledgeable teacher ought to know. The novice teachers’ knowledge relations are connected to teacher education and its curriculum. In what way they are connected is an empirical question. At the educational level, the teachers experience an encounter with a more or less common ground or basis for further development of professional knowledge. Novice teachers’ work in practice is partly steered, framed, and organized by initiatives from the state, as well as by frames and references within the professional practice. Professional practice is here delimited to how knowledge is operationalized and organized in teacher education programs and how it manifests itself in novice teachers’ knowledge relations. This creates a complex picture. To add to the complexity, the whole set of possible relations is framed by historical, cultural, and institutional structures.
A focal question concerning the complex picture of relations is: what role and position does the profession have? Does the question of how knowledge for the teaching profession is constructed belong within a professional theoretical discussion? In the time of late modernity, however, Freidson (2001) argues that the concept and function of professions need to be re- conceptualized in order to be sustained in societies that, at that time, developed a new order. Freidson claims that the traditional scholarly discussions about professions are inductive and descriptive, seeking to find existing patterns and key aspects within the professions. This approach is not adequate in a societal order where professions, more than ever, must compete with marked forces and bureaucracy in order to effectively gain control over specialized knowledge and services. The underlying rationale and policies upon which professionalism rests and depends have to be re-examined (Freidson, 2001, p. 11). Freidson makes two claims about professions that are important for this study: 1) Professions have a monopoly over the practice of a defined body of intellectualized knowledge and skills independent of the state, but 2) the profession’s activities and frames are to a certain extent controlled by the state. The prime contingency of the professions and professionalism is the state and its policies
(Freidson, 2001). The relationship can be described as symbiotic: the state grants the professions their power and status as autonomous societal groups, while the professions provide the state with knowledge, tools, and services society needs. The relationship is contextual and situational, and it depends on actors and structures. This means that the nature
of the relationship between state and policy processes, on the one hand, and professions, on the other, is to a large degree an empirical question. Even the question of who is regarded as an insider or an outsider in a profession (e.g., a researcher on teacher education, an expert in bureaucracy, a teacher educator) remains empirical.
This thesis contributes to an understanding of key processes and relations involved in developing teachers’ professional knowledge. The three research contexts and empirical lenses—entrances - policy making processes, curricula content, and novice teachers’ knowledge relations—were selected to address the overall research problem: How is
knowledge for the teaching profession constructed? This study aims to contribute in a unique
way by combining the analysis of three different research contexts with a composite way of asking questions. A flexible analytical framework is needed, which can assist in approaching formative structures and processes in and between the three perspectives taken. Two different, but somewhat related theoretical perspectives are integrated. The analytical framework is presented in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Analytical framework
To address policy making processes (structure, actors, and rules) for teacher education, I turn to Gornitzka (1999) and her conceptual framework on comparative policy research in higher education. To approach how knowledge is operationalized and organized in teacher education programs and how this organization of knowledge manifests itself in novice teachers’ knowledge relations, I rely upon Bernstein’s (1999, 2000) theorizing on the regulation and distribution of knowledge and its transformation into pedagogical discourse and pedagogical settings.