Where is pedagogy in teaching and teacher education?: The production of pre-fabricated teachers

What makes a good teacher and how can teacher education programmes contribute to the development of such teachers? These questions are the basis of much discussion in the media and policy talk. Many working in university settings also struggle with these questions. Alignment between the media, policy, practising teachers and academics is seldom reached. In this chapter we are not seeking to answer these questions. Indeed, we would suggest that there is no defi nitive answer to either of them. However, we argue that that the development of pre-service teachers’ and practising teachers’ pedagogical repertoire is critical for working towards more equitable outcomes from schooling. We note though that current trends in education are working against the development of such repertoires both within teacher education programmes and schools. In 1981, in relation to policy, Brian Simon asked: ‘why no pedagogy in England?’ Many writers have since addressed this issue (see, for example, Alexander, 2004). While pedagogy has not been at the forefront of policy it has been of critical concern in teacher education for many years because it is central to both the content and process of teacher preparation (Mercier, 19091; Loughran and Russell, 1997; Loughran, 2006)