With the study reported on here we aimed to explore and compare the experiences of pre-service teachers with their mentor teachers and of mentor teachers with their own mentor teachers when they were pre-service teachers. The design of this qualitative research was narrative inquiry. The study group consisted of senior pre-service pre-school…

This study was conducted within the framework of the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), focusing on tripartite collaborations among university teachers, practice teachers, and student teachers. Change Laboratory workshops were held, where participants discussed what enables and what constrains student teachers to accomplish their…

Previously the authors have reported on the merits of involving student teachers in school-based curriculum development projects (McCullagh and Doherty, 2018; Earle and McCullagh 2020; McCullagh and Doherty 2021). These projects have involved up to 20 primary science specialist student teachers planning and teaching lessons in a small number of…

Cooperating teachers play a critical role in preparing teachers during the student teaching experience. Yet, they are often an undervalued contributor to the conversation of teacher education. This exploratory study highlights the voices of cooperating teachers regarding their perspectives on the student teaching experience. Through a Qualtrics…

In this longitudinal study, we sought to better understand mentor teachers' perceptions of their roles as school-based teacher educators. We studied 11 school-based teacher educators and 123 teacher candidates, and collected data from observations, interviews, and artifacts. Using content and thematic analysis, the six roles of school-based…

The present bounded case study explored preservice teachers' experiences using a boundary object in the form of a mathematics course assignment during a pre-student teaching clinical experience. The study focused on preservice teachers' perceptions of how utilizing a boundary object influenced the dynamics of their hierarchical relationships with…

Recent policy in Ireland enhanced the position of school placement in Initial Teacher Education programmes. This paper considers how care ethics has a vital role in sustaining the goodwill of the cooperation and guidance from professionals who mediate the school placement setting, noting values of reciprocal caring in placement mentor-mentee roles…

Today's elementary teacher candidates (TCs) are entering a world of public education decimated by decades of neoliberal education reforms (Kumashiro, 2010; Lipman, 2012) exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Giroux, 2021) and the current white-supremacist, heteropatriarchal backlash (Pendharkar, 2022). For justice-oriented TCs, finding agency in…

Positioning theory has been used in research to understand how elementary student teachers are positioned while working with their mentor teacher. While this research has identified four general positions, there remains a lack of clarity about these positions, particularly in how they differ. This study explores three contrasting student…

This quasi-experimental study of self-regulated learning (SRL) in the context of primary teacher education emerged from the importance attributed to SRL for developing student teachers' active and conscious learning. Contrary to earlier studies that focused on SRL within the initial teacher training, in this study we sought for the impact of…

This qualitative study explored the experiences, and specifically the challenges, of white elementary student teachers in an urban setting. One of the most interesting findings from this study involved the varied levels of engagement with the school curriculum. Although every Urban Student Teacher (UST) embraced the curriculum, data showed…

The present study investigated how student teachers and mentor teachers in a one-school-year teacher practicum in Germany interacted in an 'egalitarian' way despite their experience-based gap in expertise, status and power. Our study is embedded in a participatory research context to involve the agents of change. The sample consisted of 57 student…

Inclusive education offers accessibility to school settings for all children, regardless of background or disability. This retrospective mixed-methods study examined the attitudes of teacher candidates regarding inclusive education, after participating in a unique year-long program on this topic. The study included 42 teacher candidates and 38…

Special education (SPED) teacher preparation programs are intended to help preservice teachers (PSTs) learn and adopt effective teaching practices to serve students with special needs. To help SPED-PSTs learn needed skills, SPED mentor teachers (MTs) must employ high-leverage practices (HLPs) such as performance feedback, conferencing, and…

This study aimed to examine the effects of a physical education teacher education programme on (a) preservice teachers' (PSTs') specialised content knowledge (SCK), and (b) the game-play development of their students, during a student-centred Sport Education-Step Game Approach (SE-SGA) unit. Three PSTs selected by convenience sampling (22-24 years…