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Ole Björkvist, Ian Westbury, Pertti Kansanen, and Sven-Erik Hansén (2005)
Teacher Education for Research-based Practice in Expanded Roles: Finland's experience
Scandinavian Journal or Educational Research vol:49 n°5 : p. 475–485
Preparing teachers for a research-based professionalism has been the central mission of teacher education in Finland since the mid-1970s. More recently, as a result of such national policy developments as school-based curriculum development and local decision-making, the conception of teachers? work and professionalism has expanded. Drawing on experience within the teacher
education programmes at the University of Helsinki and A° bo Akademi University, this paper discusses some of the programmatic issues that these developments have raised in class-teacher, i.e. ??elementary??, teacher education programmes. We focus in particular firstly on the research thesis that is a part of every teacher education programme in Finland, and the hallmark of the researchbased
professional ideal; and, secondly on the emerging issues that derive from the need to incorporate the expanded understanding of the teacher?s role within the curriculum of teacher education.