Brooks, Clare; (2022) The uses and abuses of quality in teacher education policy making. In: Menter, Ian, (ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research. (pp. 1-17). Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, Switzerland.

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Abstract

“Quality” has become a buzz word in teacher education policy formation resulting in increasingly prescriptive policy approaches, particularly in England. Through analysis of how the English policy documents make claims for quality and the basis for those claims, I argue that not only are they poorly defined but also, because of their rhetorical positioning, are deeply flawed. Claims for quality are not benign but are used discursively to promote a narrow and prescriptive approach to teacher education. This reductionist view deliberately focusses on the use of “evidence” as a way of shutting down debate and side-lining alternative approaches. England is just one example of policy reform and can be seen as an outlier, as other approaches can draw upon a different and equally valid international evidence base. It is used here however to draw attention to the ways in which claims for quality and the evidence base upon which they draw can be misleading.

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