“Governing European Teacher Education:How great expectations in Brussels are ‘glocalised’ within Germany”
Hans-Georg Kotthoff & Vasileios Symeonidis
Pages: 5 – 29
Abstract
After years of integration and efforts to converge European education, the EU has visibly gained influence on various aspects of national education systems, including teacher education. This paper explores whether,and to what extent, European expectations and policy initiatives, focusing particularly on the Bologna process, have an influence on national teacher education systems. Taking the German teacher education system as an example, the paper argues that despite the harmonising influence of the Bologna process,systems of teacher education within Europe retain a strong national and even regional character, being far from uniform. Findings reveal that the diversity of teacher education within Germany has grown and that teacher education institutions within Germany are still primarily regulated by national or even regional bodies, which effectively resist increasing pressures to converge European teacher education system.