The Struggle to Reform Teacher Education in Austria
The Struggle to Reform Teacher Education in Austria

Summary/Abstract: Across Europe, governments are increasingly reforming teacher education in an effort to improve education and raise student performance. Since 2009, Austria initiated a nationwide reform to restructure teacher education towards a competence-oriented model, in order to overcome the traditional separation in the teaching workforce and foster cooperation between universities and university colleges of teacher education. This paper aims to explore the process of developing the “Teacher Education New” (PädagogInnenbildung Neu) reform in Austria from the perspective of policy actors involved in the process. Therefore, semi-structured interviews with national policy experts representing different stakeholder groups were conducted and analysed using the method of qualitative content analysis. Findings present the reform motives, development phases and challenges of developing the reform. The reform was a political effort to monitor teacher education and the final outcome was the result of struggles between competing political ideologies and the diverse interests of teacher education stakeholders.

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