Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development

Teachers, both in and beyond teacher education programmes, are continual learners. As society itself evolves, new settings and the challenges they provide require new learning. Teachers must continually adapt to new developments that affect their work, including alterations to qualification systems, new relationships with welfare professionals, and new technologies which are reconfiguring relationships with pupils.

Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development is an international volume which clarifies the purpose of initial (pre-service) teacher education and continuing professional development, and the role of universities and higher education personnel in these processes. An edited collection of chapters by leading researchers from the UK, the US and Europe, it gains coherence from its theoretical orientation and substantive focus on teacher learning. This book:

• demonstrates the contribution of sociocultural and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) towards our understandings of teacher learning
• offers a strong exemplification of a research focus on teachers as learners in specific sociocultural settings
• shows what teachers learn, how they learn and where they learn, using specific research examples, in the context of broader interests in the development of professional practice and professional education.

As the only volume now available that applies CHAT principles to teacher education and learning, Cultural-Historical Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development will be highly useful for teachers and teacher educators undertaking postgraduate and doctoral studies, particularly in the area of professional learning and development. It will also be of relevance to the continuing development of teachers and other school-based professionals.

Viv Ellis is University Lecturer in Educational Studies at the University of Oxford, UK.

Anne Edwards is Professor of Education in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Peter Smagorinsky is Professor of English Education at the University of Georgia, USA.